Last week, after a marathon Council meeting spanning two days, Vancouver City Council passed a motion, Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Housing Affordability Through Alignment with the Provincial Building Code, directing staff to review where the Vancouver Building By-law diverges from the BC Building Code and what those differences are costing in terms of affordability, complexity, permitting timelines, and housing delivery.
HAVAN sent a letter in support of the motion and had representation at the meeting, pushing to keep affordability and consumer choice central to all housing policy decisions. Policies that create additional cost pressures or inconsistent requirements across municipalities risk reducing housing starts and completions, limiting innovation, and slowing the delivery of homes across the housing continuum.
For years, members have shared the challenges of building across Metro Vancouver where the same home, same design, or same building approach can move ahead in one municipality, but require redesigns, additional reports, different systems, or higher costs in another.
Vancouver remains the only municipality in British Columbia operating under its own standalone building bylaw instead of the BC Building Code.
Over time, that divergence has created growing complexity for builders, trades, consultants, manufacturers, and homeowners alike. It impacts timelines, adds soft costs, complicates approvals, and limits opportunities for standardization, modular construction, and prefabrication.
And right now, those pressures are colliding with some of the toughest market conditions the industry has faced in decades.
Across Metro Vancouver, projects of all scales that would have proceeded a few years ago are now encountering delays, redesign requirements, or being shelved altogether. This is impacting not only large towers, but also laneway homes, multiplexes, renovations, and infill housing projects many municipalities and the Province are encouraging to help address housing supply challenges.
The consequences of that will not only be felt today, but also three, four, and five years from now, when there are fewer homes entering the market and even more pressure on affordability and housing choice. Housing supply cannot simply be turned back on overnight. It takes years to plan, approve, finance, and build homes, meaning delays and cancellations today create housing gaps that can take years to recover from.
As mentioned in previous Monday Briefing editions, one of the more frustrating parts of the public conversation around housing is how quickly it defaults to rhetoric around “greedy developers/builders,” which was expressed a few times during public comments at the Vancouver Council meeting discussing this motion. This framing ignores the reality of how housing is delivered and the enormous financial risk involved in bringing homes to market.
Residential construction often requires years of investment before any revenue is realized. Builders carry financing costs, municipal and regional fees, engineering expenses, consultant costs, redesigns, approval delays, market fluctuations, and regulatory changes long before construction even begins.
At the same time, British Columbia’s residential construction industry helps deliver the homes people live in while supporting approximately 117,000 jobs and contributing about $12.7 billion annually to the province’s economy, all within one of the highest-risk sectors in the province.
HAVAN members continue to lead in innovation, building science, and energy-efficient construction across the region. To support this work, HAVAN’s education programming continues focusing on providing members access to the latest technologies, systems, and construction methodologies so builders remain informed on a wide range of building solutions. Reducing overall energy use remains important, while recognizing there is no single pathway that works for every homeowner, housing type, project budget, or site condition.
The broader objective is improving alignment between the Vancouver Building By-law and the BC Building Code while continuing to support high-performing homes across British Columbia.
The motion also reflects broader concerns being raised nationally and provincially. Both CHBA BC and CHBA National have called for a pause on introducing additional code changes within the National Building Code until existing measures can be fully implemented and assessed.
The concern is not one regulation in isolation. It is the cumulative effect of layering additional complexities, requirements, and costs onto an industry already struggling with housing viability, as I mentioned in my interview with CBC On the Coast host, Michelle Eliot on Friday.
This motion will not solve the housing crisis on its own, but it represents another practical step toward improving consistency, reducing unnecessary complexity, supporting housing viability, and helping more projects move forward.
HAVAN will continue advocating for balanced solutions that support affordability, innovation, consumer choice, climate objectives, and long-term housing supply across Metro Vancouver.
HAVAN continues to work with CHBA BC and CHBA to advocate for all levels of government to work together tress the challenges of the housing industry including zoning restrictions, density limits, and NIMBYism.
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