Housing & Affordability

Instead of asking what should be built, Barbara Buser asks what can be saved By: Michaela Haas July 20, 2026 Reprinted with permission from the following website: Reasons to be Cheerful Swiss architect Barbara Buser has spent decades proving that the greenest building is often the one already standing. When one unscrews a section of the bright red sheet metal façade from K.118, a former carpentry factory in Winterthur, Switzerland, the interior reveals something few people ex

In Greater Victoria’s rush to embrace “missing middle” housing, multiplexes have been marketed as the Goldilocks solution: not too big, not too small, and just affordable enough, if at all, for the elusive middle‑income household. But when you examine the actual strata fees, operating budgets, and developer practices behind these new buildings, a very different picture emerges. What looks like affordability on paper is often a carefully engineered illusion, one that shifts lo

Bill 44 must be repealed because it represents a sweeping, top‑down restructuring of land‑use authority pushed through without public consultation and municipal partnership. It is, put simply, a governance bypass: a bill that strips away public hearings, sidelines elected councils, and replaces community‑driven planning with a one‑size‑fits‑all mandate drafted behind closed doors. Back in 2023, when the most invasive Housing Bills were pushed through, several opposition MLAs

British Columbia’s sweeping housing reforms and land‑use overhaul were introduced and passed months before the Province publicly declared a “middle‑income housing crisis” in February 2024 with the launch of BC Builds. This is when the provincial government formally asserted that “middle‑income housing crisis” required direct state intervention. This means the most aggressive zoning, density, and municipal‑power‑limiting legislation in B.C.’s history was justified after the fa

Bill 44 delivers guaranteed density and instant land‑value inflation to developers and speculators, while handing residents the bill. It accelerates upzoning without requiring affordability, infrastructure investment, or accountability, fueling speculation instead of housing. Municipalities are left scrambling to fund the roads, sewers, parks, and emergency services this density demands, and Saanich’s tax spikes are the proof: public budgets absorb the costs while private act

Please see the following analysis on the loss of affordable housing across Canada: https://chec-ccrl.ca/filling-the-hole/ People instinctively know that things have become worse in the last number of years. Here is an analysis that shows this to be true. Councillor Dave Thompson stated in the Times Colonist on March 9, 2025 that "This is why it’s important that council has approved about 7,000 new homes since the beginning of our term. New housing reduces competition for

In many gateway cities – cities tightly locked into global flows of capital and people – immigration has become the largest component of population growth, and thus a major determinant of housing markets. In Vancouver, the arrival of wealthy migrants, many holding golden visas, plus significant offshore property investment, has contributed to rapid house price inflation. In a recent paper, Lauster and von Bergmann (2023) characterise local resistance to these trends as ‘housi

Upzoning has emerged as a critical topic in urban planning and real estate discussions. It raises significant questions about housing availability and affordability. As cities grow, local governments may choose to upzone areas, increasing density. This can lead to taller buildings, multi-family units, and mixed-use developments. While the intention behind upzoning is often to stimulate growth and accommodate increasing populations, it can also have unexpected consequences for