On April 29th, the Attorney General introduced Bill 13, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2025, which includes several important amendments that are under the purview of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing – including changes that impact Metro Vancouver DCCs. 

As noted in previous newsletters, the Province and the Federal Government announced in March that they finalized an agreement to secure $250 million in federal funding for Phase 1 of the Iona Island Wastewater Treatment Plant project. As a result of the funding, the Province has introduced amendments through Bill 13 “… to temporarily extend instream protections for development charges from 12 to 24 months for Metro Vancouver Regional District and its Greater Boards (Greater Vancouver Water District and Greater Vancouver Sewerage and Drainage District) for developers that have submitted completed applications prior to March 22, 2024.” If passed, the changes would be “… applied retroactively so that the homebuilders who have met the application date above will continue to have access to the lower rates of development charges for an additional year until March 22, 2026.” 

Other important housing related initiatives that are proposed in Bill 13 include: 

• Changes to the Housing Supply Act “… to ensure consistency of provincial authority to undertake compliance measures with the City of Vancouver …;” 
• Changes to the Local Government Act and Vancouver Charter “… to provide clarity that instream protections extend to site-specific density benefit provisions, and exempt any site-specific density benefits bylaw passed prior to April 25, 2024, from having to comply with the new density benefit bylaw provisions;” and 
• Amendments to the Vancouver Charter “… to clarify that the City of Vancouver can regulate in areas also governed by the Province in the same manner as other municipalities under the Community Charter.” 

Bill 13 also includes proposed amendments to the Professional Governance Act to “… clarify that the cabinet can make regulations … to specify which job titles are not reserved exclusively for certain professionals.” This is to ensure “… professional regulatory bodies cannot prevent people from using certain job titles set out in the regulation.” 

For further information, please see the Province’s Bill 13 news release.