Suddenly, B.C. to become tough on crime

Frank O’Brien
Western Investor

After five years of watching street crimes spiral out of control as Attorney General, B.C.’s new premier plans to crack down on chronic offenders

Smashed storefront in Vancouver’s Yaletown a symbol of rising street crime across B.C. | Chung Chow

The B.C. government has launched a Safer Communities Action Plan that aims to keep repeat offenders off the streets and strengthen communities, according to David Eby, who has been B.C. Attorney General for the past five years.

The role of the Attorney General (AG) is to provide legal advice to the government and “the initiation and conduct of all prosecutions of criminal offences.”

Eby stepped down as AG to run unopposed for the premier’s chair.

Now Premier, David Eby made the safety announcement November 20, just days after being sworn into office, saying that, suddenly, public safety is now his key priority. 

The plan recognizes that there is “zero tolerance” for violence in B.C. and concentrates on helping people overcome the process of being in and out of jail, he said. 

However, as the Opposition BC Liberals noted, all of the changes could have been made months ago, and many have been demanded by experts for a long time.

 In April of this year, for example, mayors representing B.C.’s biggest communities called on the provincial government for more support to stop repeat offenders amid a rise in property crimes and random assaults.

“Our residents, frontline police officers and our councils are frustrated. We implore the Province and for your Ministries to move forward quickly on tangible solutions,” the letter from the BC Urban Mayors and Caucus said.

Since 2017 – when Eby took over as Attorney General – there has been a 118 per cent increase in the amount of time the province takes to review files it receives from police, and a 75 per cent increase in the rate of the BC Prosecution Service choosing to not charge suspects based on police cases, according to the letter.

The mayors had flagged cases where super-chronic offenders had 50 convictions or more and were still walking free.

“More than 900 innocent people have been violently attacked by strangers in Vancouver alone since the BC Liberals first called on David Eby to issue a directive to Crown Prosecutors and end his harmful catch and release policy for repeat criminal offenders,” Liberal leader Kevin Falcon said in a press release following Eby’s safety plan announcement.

“It’s clear that what was announced this morning had been prepared for months and was withheld for David Eby to opportunistically take the credit. For David Eby to play politics with public safety is unconscionable.”

Eby said that one of the first steps is setting up “co-ordinated response teams” to address the issue of violent offenders. 

“These teams are made up of police, dedicated prosecutors, probation officers,” he said. “Their mission is to prevent violent crime before it happens, and when it does happen to make sure that violent offenders wait for trial in custody and not in our community.” 

The plan also calls for increasing response to those in mental-health crisis with initiatives like 12 new “peer-assisted” care teams, some of them Indigenous-led. 

“These peer-assisted teams intervene when people are in mental-health crisis in our streets, freeing up police to focus on crime instead of social services,” Eby said. 

Eby said Attorney General Murray Rankin will instruct prosecutors to implement “a clear and understandable” bail policy for repeat violent offenders within existing federal guidelines. 

“We’re also providing training and resources for prosecutors to work with police to make sure that the materials that are put in front of the court in the case of a violent offence are complete, so the court is making a decision on all of the facts and can protect the public,” he said. 

The plan will also deal with the high numbers of Indigenous people in the justice system, Eby said. Action includes opening 10 new Indigenous justice centres across the province to go with three that are already in operation. 

Eby said people struggling with addictions and mental health need treatment to get better, and the plan calls for a new model of care for them “that moves seamlessly from crisis response in our emergency rooms and our streets to detox, to treatment and supportive housing.” 

Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog praised the plan’s scope. 

“We’ve all seen the impacts of criminal behaviour in the downtown,” he said. “That’s why I’m pleased to see the province’s co-ordinated approach of both enforcement and strengthened services, which will help break the cycle of repeat offending, help people to receive the supports they need, and help people feel safe and secure in our community.” 

 

© 2022 Western Investor

Entire city block in downtown Victoria sells for $10.25 million

Western Investor Staff
Western Investor

Prime single-tenant retail location with 21,537 square feet of strata space on Government Street has frontage on three main roadways, with rear loading docks.

 

CBRE Investment Properties Group, Victoria, B.C, for Western Investor

 

Property type: Retail

Location: 1450 Government Street, Victoria, B.C.

Number of tenants: 1 (Mountain Equipment Co-op)

Size of property; 21,537 square feet

Size of land in acres: 0.49 acres

Zoning: Old Town District-1

List price: $10.9 million

Sale price: $10.25 million

Date of sale: November 16, 2022

Brokerage: CBRE Investment Properties Group, Victoria, B.C.

Brokers: Adrian Beruschi, Ross Marshall and Chris Rust

 

© 2022 Western Investor

B.C. housing plan will immediately extend speculation taxes

Frank O’Brien
Western Investor

New scheme would turn all condos into rentals and subject the owners to provincial and Vancouver ‘empty home’ taxes if not rented

Banning condo rentals will expose about 300,000 owners to vacant-home taxes. | Chung Chow
A proposed Housing Supply Act in B.C., released November 21 by Premier David Eby, would outlaw rental restrictions in strata (condo or townhouse) projects in B.C.
It would also expose all owners of strata housing units in major urban markets to the provincial speculation tax (or empty home tax) which currently exempts those units in strata buildings that don’t allow rentals, and a similar tax in the City of Vancouver.
“Yes, it dissolves the exemption category,” confirmed Tony Gioventu, executive director of the Condominium Homeowners Association of BC. (CHOA)
 The speculation tax is applied for homes in B.C. that are left vacant, but the current law allows an exemption when “a covenant or a strata bylaw prevents the property from being rented out.” Lifting the exemption would mean that an owner would be subject to the tax, which is 0.5 per cent of the home’s value for B.C. residents and 2 per cent for foreign owners.
With the average condo apartment in Metro Vancouver valued at approximately $727,000, and a strata townhouse at just over $1 million, the B.C.-resident tax would range from about $3,500 to $5,000.
Strata owners in the city Vancouver would also suddenly be subject to the Vancouver vacant home tax, which was recently increased to 3 per cent and which currently exempts units that are subject to a strata’s rental restriction. The average condo apartment in Vancouver sold in October for approximately $800,000, meaning a $24,000 tax if it is not rented out for at least six months of the year.
If passed, B.C.’s proposed Housing Supply Act would come into effect through regulations in mid-2023, while proposed amendments to the Strata Property Act would come into effect immediately. 
But CHOA said strata studies have shown that the highest vacancy rates are in buildings with no rental restrictions.. At the same time properties with rental bylaws average a vacancy rate of 0 per cent to 4 per cent, the study found.
“The expectation that the removal of rental bylaws will result in a solution for rental housing, has no correlation to the statistics” CHOA stated in November 21 letter to provincial MLAs. “The potential effect of terminating rental bylaws … will be an increase in [condo] purchases for the purpose of speculation and investment.”
Gioventu added that landlords rarely participate in strata operations, and rarely support increased strata fees or special levies for repairs.
“In addition to the onerous task of operations, we will now be downloading the work load of managing tenants on the volunteers we charge with the statutory obligations of property operations under the Strata Property Act,” Gioventu said.
The province estimates there are about 300,000 strata units that may be subject to rental bans. However, the new Housing Supply Act would still allow stratas to have bylaws banning short-term rentals,such as Airbnbs. 
The new Act would also require the fastest-growing communities in “urgent” need of housing stock — eight to 10 communities are estimated by the province to fall into this category — to establish housing targets in consultation with the province. 
The target-setting is intended to be a collaborative approach. Municipalities will figure where and how that housing is built, according to Eby’s statement.

© 2022 Western Investor

ow much income do buyers need to afford a home in Canada’s major cities?

Mika Pangilinan
CMP

Buyers now need less income to qualify for the average home than they did over the summer as prices across Canada’s major cities declined in the month of October.

This is according to a new report from mortgage brokerage Ratehub.ca, which analysed real estate data on 10 different cities and compared it with figures from June and August.

“Homes are becoming more affordable across the country,” said James Laird, co-CEO of Ratehub.ca and president of mortgage lender Canwise. “With the Bank of Canada suggesting that rate hikes are nearing an end and the continued softening of home prices, affordability should continue to improve in the coming months.”

Average home prices dropped across all 10 cities included in the Ratehub.ca report. With prices down, the income required to afford a home in these cities also declined.

Victoria saw the largest drop in required income and average home prices. With a stress test rate of 7.44% and a mortgage rate of 5.44%, Victoria homebuyers would need to make $178,890 to afford an average-priced home of $915,300. This is $4,810 below the income required in August.

Required income also dropped significantly in Halifax. Homebuyers there would need an annual income of $101,750 to afford the average home price of $484,000, down $3,780 from August.

Vancouver remained the most expensive city in the list, with homebuyers needing an income of $220,700 to afford an average home worth $1.15 million. Despite the steep price, this is still $3,150 below the income required last August.

Winnipeg, meanwhile, had the most affordable homes, with homebuyers needing to make $75,300 to afford the average home price of $337,400.

“It is likely that June 2022 will prove to be the low point for affordability, since mortgage rates were up while home prices had not yet softened significantly,” added Laird. “As affordability continues to improve, we will likely see homebuyers resume their search in the new year. We will have to see if sellers are interested in listing their homes at values that are significantly lower than their peak.”

 

Copyright © 1996-2022 KM Business Information Canada Ltd.

Residential land still seeing eye-popping prices

Frank O’Brien
Western Investor

 Even as B.C. home prices decline, Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island developers appear willing to pay millions of dollars per acre for residential assemblies

A 1.2-acre residential development site (the ‘Cut’) in East Vancouver sold In October for $23.8 million. | Colliers

While benchmark prices for homes in British Columbia have been declining since a peak level this spring, developers still appear willing to pay eye-popping prices for residential land, based on recent transactions.

The Homebuilders Association of Vancouver released a report January 31, 2022, that estimated that land values account for 38.1 per cent of the average cost of a new Metro Vancouver detached house, which sold at the time for $1.75 million.

Land prices have continued to increase since then.

According to Altus Group, residential land was the primary investment in Metro Vancouver during the first half of 2022 with $2.94 billion in dollar volume, representing 52 per cent of all land transactions. A first-half example includes a 0.6-acre site in the Metrotown area of Burnaby, zoned for high-density residential, that sold June 22 for $21.8 million.

Here are some recent examples culled from done deals posted in Western Investor in the third quarter of this year, which include Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island transactions:

• A 1.23-acre land assembly in East Vancouver near Trout Lake sold in mid-October for $23.8 million, equating to close to $20 million per acre. The land is zoned for a townhouse development at a floor space ratio (FSR) 1.45. This means the 53,664 square-foot site could accommodate total residential space of 77,812 square feet, requiring more than $305 per square foot in the final townhouse price before construction even starts.

• In Surrey, less than acre (0.97-acre) in the Fleetwood area and close to a planned station for the Surrey-Langley Skytrain extension sold October 12 for $6.5 million.

• A 1.05-acre residential infill site in Langley’s Willoughby area, zoned for compact detached homes, sold October 6 for $2.95 million. A one-acre residential site in the same neighbourhood transacted September 20 for $2.9 million.

• In Greater Victoria, a 1.4-acre residential development site ihn Colwood sold September 23 for $2 million over its assessed value at $2.85 million. In Nanaimo, a 0.4-acre lot sold September 29 for $1.69 million, equal to around $4 million per acre.

The current prices being paid for residential land suggest that both new strata and rental prices may need to increase in the future as developers attempt to capture high land values.

 

© 2022 Western Investor

Abbotsford 140-acre industrial park given greenlight

Western Investor Staff
Western Investor

The new Xchange Business Park will be developed along Mt. Lehman Road, Abbotsford. | QuadReal Property Group

A new 140-acre industrial development in Abbotsford should help meet demand in one of the tightest industrial markets in British Columbia.

With no new space under construction this year, Abbotsford has a 0.2 per cent vacancy rate – or about 17,000 square feet available – within its 9.4 million square feet of industrial real estate, according to a third-quarter report from Colliers.

QuadReal Property Group and Hungerford Properties announced November 17 that the developers had received regulatory approval to begin construction of the first two buildings within the Xchange Business Park on Mt Lehman Rd in Abbotsford.

The large business park is slated to include 11 buildings and 1.3 million square feet of purpose-built light industrial space.

The 140 acres is part of the land approved for exclusion by the Agricultural Land Commission in 2005. The Xchange project will also dedicate about 40 acres to green space and will include an amenity building that recognizes the nearby Matsqui First Nation, according to a press release.

The facilities are designed to alleviate strains to the supply chain through such features as dock loading, high ceilings and immediate access to the Trans-Canada Highway, the release stated.

“The new Xchange Business Park not only substantially increases premium industrial space in Abbotsford, it will also add much needed jobs in our growing community,” said Abbotsford Mayor, Ross Siemens. “Key economic projects like this help further cement Abbotsford as the regional economic and cultural hub of the Fraser Valley.”

From a jobs perspective, Abbotsford is already a leader in the logistics sector. While total employment in the area increased by 10 per cent between 2015 and 2019, employment in transportation and warehousing grew three times as quickly. The Xchange project is expected to generate an estimated 1,000 direct jobs in Abbotsford and $23.6 million in provincial taxes, according to the developers.

“We’ve all heard of the challenges posed by a lack of industrial space close to metropolitan centres,” said Jeff Rank, senior vice-president, leasing for QuadReal Property Group. “The demand in Metro Vancouver is largely driven by e-commerce and logistics requirements. And for almost a decade, demand has outstripped supply, so Xchange is filling a very definite need in the local supply chain.”

Michael Hungerford, a partner in Hungerford Properties, said the Xchange project could have space available in the first two buildings as early as 2024.

 

© 2022 Western Investor

Drought, dwindling number of farms cut into Christmas tree supply

Darron Kloster
Times Colonist

Christmas tree farms are vanishing — from 500 a decade ago to about 400 now — as owners retire and sell off their land, while supplies are also being hit hard by extreme weather

It’s more than a month until Christmas, but Jingle Bells are turning to alarm bells as fresh Christmas trees are expected to be in short supply this year.

“I would say buy sooner rather than later,” says Larry Whitehead, a Surrey commercial grower and a member of the B.C. Christmas Tree Association. “It looks like we’re going to be tight on supply again this year.”

The irony is that Canada’s most treed province simply can’t meet the demand for fresh-cut Christmas trees and has to import the conifers from Washington, Oregon, Quebec and Nova Scotia, says Whitehead.

The problem is Christmas tree farms are vanishing — from 500 a decade ago to about 400 now — as owners retire and sell off their land.

B.C. supplies are also being hit hard by extreme weather. A crushing heat dome in 2021 killed off seedlings and damaged maturing trees. That was compounded by a record drought this past summer that could affect quality and supplies this year and into the future.

The average Christmas tree grows about a foot a year, and trees are harvested between the ages of four and seven.

Whitehead said the industry has reached out to the Ministry of Agriculture to help encourage young farmers to get into the tree business by designating underutilized land for growing. “You can grow a tree on just about any kind of land and there’s lot of land in B.C. not being used,” he says.

Robert Russell, 84, who operates the 25-acre Sahtlam Tree Farm near Duncan, has brought in a new partner to help him continue a Christmas tree farm tradition that’s lasted 50 years. Down the road from his property, he says two similar farms recently stopped growing trees because the owners retired.

“The problem is we’re all getting a little older, and the number of farmers are getting fewer and fewer,” says Russell.

Despite losing all his seedlings to the heat dome in 2021 and about 75% of his new stock this past summer, Russell started harvesting about 3,000 trees this week. They will go Root Cellar stores in Victoria, West Shore Canadian Tire and the Boys Scouts of Canada, which sells them to raise funds.

Russell, who has a degree in forestry and lives in a cabin he built at his farm near Duncan, said there will likely be fewer trees next year and in coming seasons because the survival rate for seedlings has dipped. “It will bite you down the line,” he says.

Paige Wheaton, owner of potted Evergrow Christmas Trees in the Lower Mainland, said the weather is taking a toll on supplies in the province.

“I’ve been in constant contact with farmers across the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island for the past two months, and everyone is telling me this is going to be a crazy season with huge demand and significantly reduced supply due to the summer heat wave,” Wheaton said, adding many farms and lots are planning to open for only one or two weekends in November because they know they will sell out fast.

Kim Frocklage, who sourced and sold trees at Braefoot Park for decades, is moving her operation to West Shore Parks and Recreation in Colwood this year, the result of a facility-use spat between the District of Saanich and Braefoot Athletic Association.

She normally stocks about 2,000 trees a year, but is scrambling to come up with about 1,300 from several sources, including the Sahtlam Farm, and growers in Invermere and Oregon.

She plans to open sales in the lacrosse box at West Shore Parks and Rec on Nov. 25. “People are calling me now to reserve because they didn’t know where I was going to be or if there would be trees,” said Frocklage. “There will be shortages because everybody’s playing catch-up from the last two or three years of fires, floods and the heat dome.”

Tim Hale, who operates a seedling nursery in the Cowichan Valley, says Christmas tree farmers now have to irrigate if they have any hope of making it in the business. “We went through 24 weeks of drought, and the seedlings just can’t take that,” he says. “Even with the recent rains we’ve had, you can dig down a foot and it’s dry. The big rains just run off. We need that steady rain to really soak in.”

Hale’s Cairn Park Nursery has six greenhouses, but only dedicates parts of one to Christmas tree seedlings, producing about 30,000 seedlings for next year. “A big part of the problem on the south Island is the big growers are getting out or on the verge of retiring — and no one’s coming in to fill the void,” he says.

Hale said the fresh-cut Christmas tree industry has ebbed and flowed over the years in the battle of fresh versus artificial trees, but started to see a resurgence during the pandemic.

“People were stuck at home and it was an opportunity for families to get out and do something together, like find and cut down a Christmas tree,” says Hale. “We saw a huge increase. But it may go the other way now.”

At Saanichton Christmas Farms, owner Joan Fleming is opening her Christmas tree sales this Friday at 8231 East Saanich Road.

She’s been harvesting about 3,000 trees from her farm on the Peninsula and a 50-acre plot near Shawnigan Lake, as well as importing another 1,000 trees from the East Kootenays. The Fleming family has also provided the evergreen in the legislature rotunda since the early 1980s, and plans to deliver a big conifer on Nov. 29.

“I worked at a dentist for 25 years, so you’re often dealing with people who aren’t happy to be there,” says Fleming. “But selling Christmas trees … well, people are happy, whole families are happy. It’s like night and day.”

 

© 2022 Victoria Times Colonist

Ontario Cities Ranked: Most and Least Competitive Real Estate Markets in 2022

Daniel Crook
ZOOCASA

Housing prices in Canada have steadily declined this year since the Bank of Canada began introducing interest rate hikes. The record price highs of last winter are long gone, and many markets in Ontario have experienced fluctuations in average prices, levels of inventory, and transactions.

With 2023 just around the corner, we analyzed market competition across 34 cities and regions in Ontario by comparing sales and new listing data for each city for October. This data was then used to determine the sales-to-new-listings ratio (SNLR) for the month, calculated by dividing the total sales by the number of new listings in each region. The SNLR is used to effectively show the level of demand and supply in each area, and help identify how much competition local buyers face with regard to supply. The SNLR can be broken down into three percentage parameters:

• An SNLR under 40% suggests a buyer’s market: where new listings outweigh and buyers have more options
• An SNLR between 40% and 60% is a balanced market: where demand and supply are balanced
• AN SNLR over 60% means a seller’s market: where demand outpaces supply, benefiting sellers

Our findings show that of the 34 markets, just six are currently not in balanced territory, with only one favouring buyers, and the remaining five markets favouring sellers, meaning demand outweighed the supply in the area. The balanced markets are widespread across Ontario, reflecting the stalemate seen between buyers and sellers with interest rate hikes taking priority over financial decisions.

 

Each GTA Market is Currently in a Balanced State

Housing competition has cooled across the entire GTA, and each market is currently in a balanced state. The area as a whole saw 4,961 sales last month with 10,390 new homes coming to market, leading to an SNLR of 53.2%. With talks of another rate hike in December, it may be a while before the area begins favouring sellers again. 

• Read: Ontario Cities with the Highest and Lowest Property Tax Rates in 2022

Some cities in the GTA have seen sharper declines than others. Burlington’s SNLR, for example, has fallen by 39% year-over-year to 44%, as sales have dipped by 32% to 163.  New listings in Burlington have picked up by 26% to 331. However, markets in the last few months of the year do have a tendency to drop off and this may have some effect on these markets.

There Are Still Some Markets that Favour Sellers

Of the five Ontario markets that do benefit sellers, four of them are in cities where homes are well below the average Canadian home price of $644,643. They are Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, North Bay, and Sudbury. Of those four, Sudbury has the highest average price of $436,000. 

• Read: Fixed-Rate vs. Variable-Rate Mortgages: Which is Right for You?

With greater affordability comes more buyers – while interest rates are high, buying somewhere like Thunder Bay, where the average home price is $309,310, is far less costly than trying to buy a home in Markham, where the average price is $1,282,561.,  Whereas cities like Toronto have seen drops in sales of almost 50% from last year, Thunder Bay has seen a much more modest decline of 4.7%. Sellers still have some luck because the cost of borrowing isn’t as high as it is in larger cities with greater home prices.

 

 

• Read: Buying or Selling in 2023? Here’s How to Prepare Now

Niagara Falls is currently the only buyer’s market. It has experienced a mild improvement in new listings year-over-year, up to 214 from 199. . However, sales have declined from 163 to 62, with properties now spending 37 days on the market, up 106% from last year. With 214 new listings coming to market, buyers have more inventory to choose from. The SNLR here declined by 53% to 29%, the steepest drop across every area we covered alongside Kingston.

Methodology

The sales-to-new-listings ratio is calculated as the number of sales divided by new listings.

Home prices, sales and new listings were sourced from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, London St. Thomas Association of Realtors, Barrie & District Association of REALTORS, Waterloo Region Association Of REALTORS, REALTORS Association Of Hamilton-Burlington, Niagara Association of REALTORS, and the Canadian Real Estate Association. All prices are average prices, except for Thunder Bay where benchmark prices were used.

 

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Port Coquitlam industrial strata sells for twice its assessed value

Western Investor Staff
Western Investor

The 1,630-square-foot unit attracted multiple offers and sold for $1.24 million on October 31, 2022

 

NAI Commercial, Vancouver, for Western Investor

 

Property type: Industrial

Location: 1833 Coast Meridien Road, Port Coquitlam, B.C.

Property size: 1,630 square feet

Zoning: M-1 (industrial)

BC Assessment value: $600,700.

List price: $1.248 million

Sale price: $1.242 million

Date of sale: October 31, 2022

Brokerage: NAI Commercial, Vancouver

Broker: Brian MacKenzie

 

© 2022 Western Investor

Canadian housing sales ‘popped up’ in October: CREA

Western Investor Staff
Western Investor

Latest data from the Canadian Real Estate Association shows sales downturn may be ending early, though composite home price is down nearly 10 per cent from 2021

October sales were up 6 per cent month-over-month in Greater Vancouver to lead the national increase. | Chung Chow

National home sales edged a bit higher in October from a month early, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), suggesting the downturn that started this spring may be coming to an early end.

About 60 per cent of all local markets saw sales rise in October, although both gains and declines were generally small across the board. The largest gain, a 6 per cent increase in Greater Vancouver, was offset by a 2.4 per cent decrease in activity in Montreal.

The number of transactions in October 2022 came in 36 per cent below that same month last year, and about 15 per cent below the pre-COVID-19 10-year average for the month.

“October provided another month’s worth of data suggesting the slowdown in Canadian housing markets is winding up,” said Shaun Cathcart, CREA’s senior economist. “Sales actually popped up from September to October, and the decline in prices on a month-to-month basis got smaller for the fourth month in a row.”

The number of newly listed homes was up 2.2 per cent on a month-over-month basis in October, with gains in the Greater Toronto Area and the B.C. Lower Mainland offsetting declines in Montreal and Halifax-Dartmouth, according to CREA.

With sales up by a little less than new listings in October, the sales-to-new listings ratio eased back to 51.6 per cent, compared to 52 per cent in September. The long-term average for this measure is 55.1 per cent.

The composite home price in Canada in October edged down 1.2 per cent month-to-month, to $644,643. This was lowest monthly decline since June 2022, but was 9.9 per cent lower than in October 2021.

 

 

© 2022 Western Investor