BC Real Estate Association Calls on Next Government of Canada to Lower Development Charges and Fund Municipal Infrastructure

/EIN News/ -- Vancouver, April 14, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- To help address the need for a significant increase in housing, the BC Real Estate Association (BCREA) is calling on the next Government of Canada to repurpose the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) to offset municipal development and amenity cost charges, the Association announced today.

The federal government created the HAF to assist municipalities with boosting housing supply while supporting affordable, diverse, and climate-resilient communities. But the program was implemented without adequate structure or guidance as to how to best use the funds to achieve these goals. In the meantime, new development has been slowed by substantial increases in development cost charges (DCCs) and amenity cost charges (ACCs) as individual municipalities strain to pay for infrastructure growth.

“The prevailing philosophy of ‘growth pays for growth’ is not working,” said Trevor Hargreaves, BCREA Senior VP of Policy Research and Government Relations. “We have a dire need for new housing across the country, but development sector profitability has been hindered by increasing building costs, exacerbated by municipalities raising DCC and ACC fees. In the end, the homebuyer pays the price.”

In many Canadian cities, rising development costs have proven detrimental to the economics of many projects and resulted in cancelled or delayed development. Notably, for projects that do move ahead, these costs are most often passed along to the purchaser, significantly increasing the cost of housing.

While the creation of the HAF has been a step forward for municipalities, this program and its associated funds would be more efficiently utilized with a focus on DCCs and ACCs. As such, BCREA urges the federal government to expand and reorient the HAF to primarily provide financing for municipal infrastructure in communities that have shown a willingness to expand housing supply.

Additionally, policymakers should be encouraged to provide flexibility on the timing of DCC payments, allowing them to be collected at the end of a project rather than up front to ease the financial constraints on housing projects. Accelerator funding could also be used in these instances to carry related cost charges.

Craig Battle, Senior Marketing & Communications Specialist
                    British Columbia Real Estate Association
                    6047422790
                    cbattle@bcrea.bc.ca