As the chief spokesperson for the development industry in British Columbia, I will be the first to acknowledge that the public perception of developers and development has not always been a positiv
About a year ago in January 2012, I read an article in Maclean’s Magazine entitled – ‘What happens when Canada’s housing bubble pops?’ – “The signs of a bubble are unequivocal” the author
One of the core impacts and influences on new housing costs, and therefore affordability, in British Columbia is the application of development contributions at the municipal level. Whether t
As Executive Director of the Urban Development Institute (UDI), I must admit that I read with slight bemusement a recent opinion piece by Elizabeth James in the
An ever growing population in British Columbia’s urban centres, combined with ageing building stock in many areas, has necessitated a need to reconsider provisions of the
In a two-part series, on November 24th and 29th, the Urban Development Institute, in combination with the Sauder School of Business at UBC, held the inaugural Design Advantage
It is not commonly known to homebuyers that along with the cost of land, construction costs, and government fees, that there is another large expense built into the purchase price of a home.
In the fall of 2010, seventeen students from both the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) and the UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA)
Comparing local housing markets in Canada, “Vancouver really stands alone in its extreme unaffordability across all housing types” (Royal Bank of Canada, August 2011). As any aspirin
