UBCM summit hears B.C.'s new density law around transit is unlikely to spark building boom
Metro Vancouver municipalities were already pushing transit-oriented development before the province's new legislated density requirements around rapid transit
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B.C.’s legislation that mandates minimum high-density zoning around rapid transit won’t spark a building boom in Metro Vancouver beyond development municipalities are already pushing forward, a panel at the Union of B.C. Municipalities housing summit heard Wednesday.
Metro municipalities have already been taking transit-oriented design approaches to development around TransLink’s SkyTrain and Canada Line stations.
“In many respects, local government has been way before the curve, with respect to a number of things that are contained within this particular bill,” said Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West.
“(Municipalities) have established frequent transit networks and you have seen in those areas, long before provincial legislation, things like reduced parking requirements, higher density,” West said. “It just makes good sense.”
The legislation does, however, expand the zone around rapid-transit stations subject to higher-density requirements to 800 metres, from a more typical 400 metres. And that has the potential to open up new rounds of speculation for development.
“Already we’re seeing developers who are eager to advance applications within the 800-metre ring of many SkyTrain stations,” said Don Luymes, general manager of planning and development for Surrey.
That includes existing SkyTrain stations and the yet-to-be-built stations on the province’s Surrey-to-Langley SkyTrain extension, so “that’s going to create a lot of work,” Luymes said.
The legislation has sparked interest among landowners, land speculators and both sophisticated and unsophisticated developers, which Luymes expects will create “quite a frenzy” of planning and development review.
“In terms of actual development on the ground, built units, I think (impact will be minimal),” Luymes said.
Surrey, like a lot of Metro Vancouver municipalities, already has large areas designated to accommodate growth that are written into official community and neighbourhood plans, “well more than any reasonable projection for population growth.”
In Surrey’s City Centre alone, for example, the city’s official community plan allows for development to accommodate 150,000 new people, without beginning to consider future SkyTrain related development along the extension’s Fraser Highway route to Langley.
“I do have some concern that there may be a kind of reshuffling of the furniture, so to speak,” Luymes said. “That development will flow to areas that are now available for higher density that weren’t planned for (by the city).”
Luymes said the provincial and federal governments will also have to get more serious about supporting community services now that all the new housing that they want municipalities to build will need such services as schools.
From Surrey’s perspective, Luymes said the city faces “a huge and growing disparity between the number of kids that are showing up in school every year,” and the provincial resources devoted to building classrooms to contain them.
West, who is also chair of TransLink’s mayors council, also used Wednesday’s panel as another soap box to advocate for permanent federal funding to support transit operations.
TransLink’s service levels have been frozen since 2019, yet the region’s population has grown by some 50,000 people per year, largely because of federal immigration targets, which squeezes the transit authority’s capabilities.
The federal government has talked about establishing a national, permanent transit fund by 2026, but West said TransLink will have to plot out budget cuts of almost $700 million per year by then to avoid running deficits.
“If I get told one more time what a valued and important partner I am by another level of government, I’m going to lose my mind,” West said. “They need to actually step up and deliver on the decisions that they’ve made.”
Federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser, who delivered a keynote address to the UBCM summit, said government is taking the steps to move on that commitment.
“Of course everyone would like money yesterday and more of it,” Fraser said. “We need to go through the Treasury Board process to formally have the approval of the Government of Canada to release funding.”
Once it has that approval, government can start on negotiations with transit agencies across the country, not just TransLink, which he is confident will happen this year.
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