Province to speed up its own building approvals and permits processes

• The province is promising to speed up the building approval and permitting process by creating a new cross-ministry team.
• Permit and approval priority will be given to areas covered by the Speculation and Vacancy tax.

To build more market homes and help remedy the ongoing housing crisis, Premier David Eby has announced a plan to speed up the provincial building approvals and permitting process.

The new Permitting Strategy for Housing will be a “one-stop” coordinated approach.

The goal is to speed up the often complex and lengthy process which can require multiple provincial permit applications from various ministries and involve riparian area approvals, water licences, transportation approvals, road rezonings, contaminated sites, and heritage inspections.

A new cross-ministry team, the Housing Action Task Force, will be created to focus solely on processing provincial housing approvals and permits. This new team will be under the direction of Nathan Cullen, Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship.

To start, 42 new full-time positions will focus on applications for buildings with multiple units, Indigenous-led projects and BC Housing applications. The team will include decision makers, information technology systems, project managers, and policy support. The plan is to increase this team to 203 positions.

Priority will also be given to authorizations and permit approvals for housing projects in municipalities subject to the Speculation and Vacancy Tax, which have the greatest housing shortages, lowest vacancy rates, and most demand for housing.

The new team will reduce wait time to months from years by simplifying and speeding up the complex, multi-layered provincial approval process.

The premier hasn’t provided details about the number of housing units he expects will be created or the timeline.

This new approvals and permitting strategy was first outlined in the provincial 2019 Development Approvals Process Review (Opens 39-page pdf)

Read Premier Eby’s January 16, 2023 announcement.

Watch Premier Eby’s announcement (45 minute video).

If you have questions, contact Harriet Permut director of government relations at hpermut@rebgv.org.