Whereas the Province of British Columbia has made significant investments in housing initiatives to address homelessness and housing affordability, including programs such as the Community Housing Fund, Rapid Response to Homelessness, and the Supportive Housing Fund, which aim to provide immediate and long-term housing solutions for vulnerable populations; yet sometimes underfund the cost to deliver the required infrastructure upgrades; And whereas local governments and non-profit organizations face substantial financial barriers when undertaking affordable housing projects, including off-site works such as infrastructure upgrades, which are critical to the long-term sustainability of supportive housing projects but often fall outside the scope of existing funding programs: Therefore be it resolved that UBCM urge the provincial government and BC Housing to complete all housing project off-site works to local government standards or provide direct funding to local governments to undertake the works required to ensure the sustainability of local government infrastructure and the long-term viability of affordable housing projects.
Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs The Province recognizes the pressures on local government infrastructure, amenities and services with aging infrastructure, increased growth, and climate change impacts. In this time of economic uncertainty, working together across levels of government to build a strong, resilient BC economy is a high priority for this government. The province has supported local government infrastructure needs directly with programs such as the Growing Communities Fund and bilateral infrastructure grant programs with the Federal government. The province continues to advocate with the federal government for bilateral funding programs to support local government infrastructure needs. A suite of legislative changes has been put into place over the last two years to improve local governments ability to finance development-related infrastructure and to enable local governments to access borrowing more efficiently. This includes amending the Local Government Act and Vancouver Charter to provide new and updated development finance tools that local governments can use to help fund the costs of infrastructure and amenities to support complete and livable communities. Changes to legislation included updating the scope of infrastructure eligible to be funded through Development Cost Charges DCCs to include fire protection facilities, police facilities, and solid waste facilities; and, a new development finance tool called Amenity Cost Charges ACCs that allows local governments to collect funds from new developments that increase the number of residents or workers to help pay for amenities like community centres, recreation centres, daycares, and libraries to support this community growth. DCC and ACC best practices guides are available to support local governments as they develop and implement new bylaws. Local governments in British Columbia may, by bylaw, create development cost charge and amenity cost charge programs to recover a portion of the costs of off-site infrastructure from developers that benefit from local government services. Local governments may also adopt bylaws to waive or reduce these charges for affordable and supportive housing developments. Additional changes created new site-level infrastructure authorities. This includes expanded works and services powers that enable local governments to require a broader range of infrastructure such as roads, water, sewer, drainage, street furniture, parklets and sustainable design features at the building permit stage. It also expanded road dedication authority to secure space for wider sidewalks, street trees and traffic calming measures. The Province amended the municipal liabilities regulation and the short-term capital borrowing regulation to give municipalities more flexibility to plan and finance infrastructure projects. Municipalities can now borrow without elector approval for debt costs up to 10 percent of their annual revenue. In addition, the dollar limit for short term capital borrowing has been increased from 50 to 150 per capita. The Province anticipates that these measures will save time and costs and help municipalities deliver a wider range of essential infrastructure more efficiently.