Despite provincially-mandated housing targets and rezonings, CMHC reports Greater Victoria’s 366 housing starts in March 2025 are 20% lower than the 459 starts in March 2024. Overall, housing starts are down 33% year-to-date at 612 new homes in 2025 vs 916 in 2024.
Despite the province’s housing targets and taxpayer-funded projects such as BC Builds, the BC govt’s claim that housing supply is improving is not reflected in the data. New single family homes are down 32%, large multis have declined 34% and missing middle housing (townhomes, duplexes) are down 26% from January to March. The province has enabled municipalities to charge astronomical fees and added regs undermining the provincial rezonings and viability of housing projects.
Year-to-date, Langford and Colwood again lead in new home construction at 356 and 125 units respectively. The City of Victoria has 73 followed by Saanich at 21. Sooke has 10, Oak Bay 9, North Saanich 5 and Esquimalt 4. Sidney has 2 new homes . Central Saanich has 1 new home and View Royal and Metchosin continue at zero.
Presently 79% of the CRD’s new housing is in two West Shore communities – Langford and Colwood.
One of the major challenges is the province enabling municipalities to increase fees such as DCCs (development charges) and ACCs (amenity charges) without caps. Victoria and Oak Bay are ratcheting up regulations and fees to obstruct the province’s legislation which is supposed to enable up to 6 units on single family lots.
Victoria increased DCCs 258% and Oak Bay recently approved DCCs and ACCs up to $35,652 per unit for low density residential. For missing middle, which the province is trying to encourage, the charge is $23,188 per unit. They also increased site setbacks and reduced the building height of missing middle housing vs the recommendations in the province’s site standards manual. This manual should be mandatory, not optional.
BC’s housing policy is only political grandstanding without the following:
1. A cap on fees and taxes including Development Cost Charges (DCCs) and amenity contributions.
2. Mandatory site standards outlining suitable setbacks, building heights, etc to make housing buildable and more affordable.
3. Enforced timelines for development and permit approvals.
4. Requiring all municipalities to participate and show results, rather than offloading their housing responsibilities to Langford and Colwood.