BC municipalities mull joining View Royal’s judicial review of housing policies

View Royal is looking to challenge the province’s sweeping changes to housing policies—and it’s hoping other municipalities join it.

In December, the town put out an invitation to all BC municipalities to join a potential judicial review of the policies, including Bills 44, 47, 13, 15, and M216 (a private member’s bill) that shift some infrastructure and zoning authority from local governments to the province to fast-track approvals.

View Royal says these policies “raise serious questions about whether local governments can continue to operate as accountable democratic institutions.”

“These bills go beyond housing supply and, taken together, change how local democracy functions,” View Royal Mayor Sid Tobias told Capital Daily.

He says the bills raise concerns that “key decisions are being removed from public view with fewer opportunities for residents to be heard and for councils to exercise judgment.”

UBCM members raised similar concerns about Bill M216, saying the legislation continues a “trend towards sweeping, centralized legislation that impacts local governments, developed without meaningful local government input.”

Last month, multiple BC mayors gathered to tell the province to scrap its housing targets, arguing that insufficient infrastructure, a dearth of parking, and little thought to community planning in their cities make the targets difficult to meet.

The invitation has already attracted some interest—on Dec. 17, North Cowichan’s council voted to have staff look into the benefits and costs of joining the review, and the topic is scheduled to be discussed at Oak Bay council’s meeting next week.

Tobias said that the town has heard from other municipalities and regional governments, and he’s noticed a pattern of concern for the change in democratic power.

“Councils across the province [are] asking whether local governments still have a meaningful role in decisions that directly affect their residents and recognizing this conversation is bigger than any one community,” Tobias said in an email.

In his letter to fellow municipal governments, Tobias said that the purpose of the review “is not to oppose housing, but to obtain clarity on whether the Province acted within lawful limits and whether proper democratic and procedural safeguards were respected.”

However, some BC councillors say the judicial review challenges an effective approach to increasing housing. Victoria Coun. Matt Dell responded to the invitation, telling View Royal to “ Build housing, stop complaining!”

“There are too many municipalities around BC that refuse to help address the housing crisis, so provincial oversight and targets are absolutely required,” Dell wrote in an op-ed for Island Social Trends. Victoria has built nearly half of its five-year target within its first two years.

The province says the increase in housing, attributable to its targets, is the reason rental prices have been dropping across the province (though BC still has the most expensive housing costs in Canada).

But not wanting to build housing doesn’t appear to be the motivation for View Royal’s judicial review. The town has exceeded its housing targets, receiving kudos from the BC government in November, alongside Colwood and the City of Langley. The cities “have exceeded their Year 1 targets by more than 200% and are well on track to meet future year targets,” the province said in a release.

This isn’t the case for other Greater Victoria municipalities that are falling behind on targets, some of which have butted heads with the provincial housing ministry. The mayor of Oak Bay, one of the municipalities singled out for failing to meet its goals, told the ministry last year that the town has zoning for 15,000 new homes, but there aren’t enough developers looking to build.

North Saanich has also struggled to keep up with the goals, with similar concerns of a lack of developers and restrictions within its recently passed official community plan.

Tobias says he hopes the judicial review can “provide clarity” for local governments and the public that the legislation can lead to more affordable housing while still respecting “administrative fairness that we come to expect from a democracy.”