Despite provincially-mandated housing targets and rezonings, CMHC reports Greater Victoria’s 1,003 housing starts from January to April 2025 are 29% lower than the 1,422 starts in 2024. The region’s 391 housing starts in April 2025 are 23% lower than the 506 starts in April 2024.
The BC govt’s claim that housing supply is improving through taxpayer-funded programs such as BC Builds is not reflected in the data. New single family homes are down 26% and large multis have declined 34%.
Year-to-date, Langford and Colwood again lead in new home construction at 366 and 188 units respectively. The City of Victoria has 176 followed by Saanich at 121. Esquimalt 91, Sooke 26, Oak Bay 12, North Saanich 9, Central Saanich 3, Sidney 2, View Royal 2, Highlands 1, Metchosin 0.
Presently 55% of the CRD’s new housing is in two West Shore communities – Langford and Colwood.
One of the major challenges is the province enabling municipalities to increase fees such as DCCs (development charges) and ACCs (amenity charges) without caps. Victoria and Oak Bay are ratcheting up regulations and fees to obstruct the province’s legislation which is supposed to enable up to 6 units on single family lots.
Victoria increased DCCs 258% and Oak Bay recently approved DCCs and ACCs up to $35,652 per unit for low density residential. For missing middle, which the province is trying to encourage, the charge is $23,188 per unit. They also increased site setbacks and reduced the building height of missing middle housing vs the recommendations in the province’s site standards manual. This manual should be mandatory, not optional. As housing starts decline, it’s clear the BC government’s housing policies have had little impact on improving housing supply and affordability. In fact, it could be argued they have made development more challenging by enabling rising fees, taxes and code regulations.
BC’s housing policy is only political grandstanding without the following:
- A cap on fees and taxes including Development Cost Charges (DCCs) and amenity contributions.
- Mandatory site standards outlining suitable setbacks, building heights, etc to make housing buildable and more affordable.
- Enforced timelines for development and permit approvals.
- A pause on new, costly code regulations
- Requiring all municipalities to participate and show results, rather than offloading their housing responsibilities to Langford and Colwood.