Few New Promises to Increase Housing Supply in BC’s 2022 Budget

BC’s 2022 budget is very much a recovery budget. There are significant investments in continued recovery from this past year’s extreme wildfire and flooding events, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The budget acknowledged that BC’s “record-low supply and strong demand for homes” led to large price gains in 2021, across all major regions and for all dwelling types. However, there was little promised in the way of new investments to address this lack of housing supply.

Significant new investments impacting BC’s real estate sector include:

Affordable housing

• Providing $8 million of funding to support non-profit housing providers accelerate the construction of mixed-income housing through the Community Housing Fund.
• An additional $111 million to continue and accelerate progress towards building 114,000 affordable housing units in BC over 10 years. This includes a new $600 per month rent supplement for More than 3000 low-income families and seniors mixed-income rental housing.

Aboriginal Housing

• $12 million over the next three years to create and support the work of the Declaration Act Secretariat’s work on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (Declaration Act). The Secretariat will provide guidance on consultation and consistency of laws with the Declaration Act, help to inform the government’s legislative agenda and engage with Indigenous peoples to ensure the Act is consistently applied.

CleanBC

• Over $39 million in new operating funding to support energy efficient buildings and market supports under the CleanBC Better Homes, Better Buildings program. This includes $16 million over three years to provide new top-up incentives such as heat pump incentives for rural and northern homeowners. Additionally, $3 million is provided over three years to develop the highest efficiency standards for space and water heating, and a new home energy rating system home buyers identify the energy efficiency of homes.

Climate preparedness

• $400 million for Emergency Management BC to support people and communities in their recovery from flooding.
• $45 million for the BC Wildfire Service and Emergency Management BC, as well as $52 million in Wildfire Prevention Projects and Services

Other significant investments include:

• $2 billion allocated to pandemic recovery contingencies over the next year,
• $100 million per year investment into a childcare plan in partnership with the federal government, and
• $289 million over five years to connect more rural, remote and Indigenous communities to high speed internet.
• The current year’s deficit is now forecast to be $483 million.

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