May 28, 2024

During a cascade of federal housing announcements this April, you may not have noticed Bill 16 at all.

This provincial housing legislation is the complement to Bills 44, 46, and 47, which were passed last fall. It’s not exactly Earth-shattering, but it’s worth a closer inspection to give UDI members a more complete picture of B.C.’s changing development landscape.

What is Bill 16?

While Bills 44, 46, and 47 set new expectations around municipal zoning, processing, financing growth, and development across the province, Bill 16 refits certain development goals to connect with the new processes.

Consider Bill 16 a toolbox with five distinct tools:

Inclusionary Zoning will give municipalities the ability to require affordable housing in new developments. Municipalities will undertake financial feasibility analyses to establish how much density is needed to offset below-market housing. They will have the ability to approve cash-in-lieu of affordable housing, or the transfer of affordable housing requirements to another site. This legislation also prevents cities from charging ACCs on below-market housing delivered as part of an Inclusionary Zoning Bylaw.

Our take:

• This is a big step acknowledging that below-market housing comes at a cost and there must be enough market density in a project to offset this.
• Flexibilities within the provision create efficiencies, such as the ability to consolidate below-market housing requirements, instead of spreading them, a few units at a time, across multiple sites, making the units easier to manage and less of a strain on non-profit operators.

Density Benefits Zoning allows municipalities to create a bylaw for developers to purchase or make an exchange for additional height or density on their projects, like the current Density Bonus system. Cities can establish these conditions through a bylaw for pre-zoned sites, so projects can proceed directly to the Development Permit stage. Notably, this measure cannot be used to meet heights and densities set out in the regulations for Transit-Oriented Areas. It also requires that cities with existing Density Benefits Bylaws in-place ensure they follow the new requirements, or make any updates for June 30, 2025.

Our take:

• This provision adds predictability and transparency for developers and can prevent negotiations during the development process.

Tenant Protections included in Bill 16, set out the expectations for assistance provided to tenants facing eviction because of redevelopment. Under Bill 16, municipalities will be able to enact tenant protection bylaws that developers must fulfill before receiving a permit. Tenant protections can include financial assistance, help with finding a new residence, or right of first refusal on units in a new building.

Our take:

• With new housing targets and expectations under Bills 44, 46, and 47, this new mechanism enables municipalities to maintain tenant protections, even when a rezoning is not required.
• However, we would like to see the Province encourage municipalities to increase densities to offset the costs of Bill 16. 

Offsites, or Works and Services Requirements in the legislation expand municipal authority to require site-specific infrastructure, such as sidewalks, transit bays, street lighting, signs, landscaping, and water and sewer systems.

Our take:

• It’s another new mechanism to fit the changing reality of development on pre-zoned sites.

The Transportation Demand Management (TDM) framework allows the use of bylaws to require infrastructure that incentivizes walking, bicycling, and using transit over having a car; such as secure bike-parking or scooter-parking facilities.

Our take:

• Again, this seems like a change to the current mechanism that cities use to accomplish an existing goal, so they can apply TDM to pre-zoned sites.

With the advent of Bills 44, 46, and 47 last fall, municipalities were understandably concerned about how some of the provisions above would be secured without using the rezoning process. Bill 16 starts to provide that clarity.

Additionally, the Province requires municipalities to include analyses on things like cost impacts, density, and how future bylaws will impact different types and sizes of development. Not only does this put a focus on project viability as part of the policy development process, but it could also reduce some of the inconsistent policies between municipalities—and improve the predictability of the development process.

As developers, how you interact with municipalities is shifting, and our goal is to build as much familiarity for you with new processes as possible.

We may not have all the puzzle pieces yet, but UDI is hoping further provincial guidance brings the picture into clearer view; and we have offered to work with the province on developing that guidance in a way that considers you, our members.

In the meantime, we suggest filing Bill 16 away, so it becomes part of your working knowledge of B.C.’s new development landscape.

More to come, we’re sure!

Sincerely,

Anne and the UDI Team