Despite provincially-mandated housing targets and rezonings, CMHC reports Greater Victoria’s 141 housing starts in February 2025 are 49% lower than the 275 starts in February 2024. Overall, housing starts are down 46% year-to-date at 246 new homes in 2025 vs 457 in 2024.
BC govt and municipal officials claim housing supply is improving despite evidence to the contrary. These claims are not credible and reveal poor policy execution by the province. They have enabled municipalities to charge astronomical fees and added regs undermining the viability of housing projects.
Many builders are choosing to build in Langford due to the bureaucratic obstruction and costs in municipalities like Victoria and Saanich.
Year-to-date, Langford and Colwood again lead in new home construction at 149 and 34 units respectively. The City of Victoria has 24 followed by Oak Bay and Saanich tied at 9. Sooke has 6, Esquimalt and North Saanich have 4 each and Sidney 2. Central Saanich has 1 new home and View Royal has zero along with Metchosin.
Presently 74% of the CRD’s new housing is in two West Shore communities – Langford (149) and Colwood (34).
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.