B.C. Insider: Housing emerges as top priority for leaders in provincial election campaign

Good morning. Wendy Cox here today.
From tax credits to loans to outright cash giveaways, the two parties in the lead to form British Columbia’s next government began the election campaign last week with competing offers to give British Columbians some relief from the crushing cost of housing.
NDP Leader David Eby announced a unique plan to offer loans to first-time homebuyers to cover 40 per cent of the cost of buying one of 25,000 new homes earmarked for the program over the next five years. The plan would involve housing built on no-cost or low-cost land in collaboration with non-profits, municipalities, First Nations and real estate developers.
Eby estimated the loans would total $1.29-billion per year, but the government would recover the money through a second mortgage on these properties, on which the buyers must pay 1.5-per-cent interest to the government over the period of the loan.
When a buyer eventually sells their unit, the provincial loan would be repaid along with 40 per cent of the amount the home appreciated while they owned it, Eby explained. If they don’t sell it, he said, they would need to repay the full amount of the loan 25 years after their initial purchase.
The program expands on a model announced earlier in the month, when Eby said 40-per-cent loans would be offered to all buyers of the 2,600 homes planned for a site in central Vancouver known as the Heather Lands. The area is being developed by the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations.
The BC Conservatives opted to go in an entirely different direction. Leader John Rustad announced last week that his party would offer a tax credit for renters and homeowners earning a household income of less than $250,000 a year.
The plan, once fully implemented by 2029, would allow those homeowners to claim up to $3,000 a month of their rent or mortgage interest payments as an exemption when filing their provincial income tax. That could see the average family receiving $1,600 in annual rebates, the party said.
He estimated the tax credit could take $3.5-billion out of provincial revenues.
Rustad also outlined plans to get rid of many of the NDP’s housing policies in favour of some of his own.
A Conservative government, he said, would repeal the NDP’s legalization of fourplexes in every city in favour of creating time limits for municipalities to approve projects – six months for rezoning and three months for a building permit. Cities would have no housing targets, but communities would determine proactively which neighbourhoods they’d want to densify so “when people move into neighbourhoods, they know what to expect.”
Eby responded that in Rustad’s world, “the speculators win, the investors win, but everyday families lose because they can’t find an affordable place to live.”
During a tour of a new neighbourhood of compact, mass-manufactured homes on Vancouver Island last week, Eby said an NDP government would boost factory-built home construction.
“This is the future of home building,” he said.
On Sunday, the NDP sweetened the pot further by announcing a new tax cut to address the cost of living, starting with a $1,000 cheque for most B.C. households next year, the first year in a plan to eventually cut taxes by about $500 for individuals who make $125,000 a year or less, or about $1,000 for households with a combined income of $250,000 or less.
The NDP news release did not say how much the tax cut would mean to provincial coffers. The party expects a record deficit of $10-billion for this fiscal year.
The BC Green Party plans to release its election platform this week.
This is the weekly British Columbia newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.