Upzoning and redevelopment: The details matter<\/a><\/em> found that cutting through the red tape and speeding up the bureaucratic process was Kelowna\u2019s key to success.<\/p>\n\n\n\nFaster building permit approval and lower parking requirements were the biggest differences between Coquitlam and Kelowna when it came to building more multi-unit housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study found that getting development permits approved in Coquitlam could take years, but in Kelowna it could take as little as two weeks. Kelowna also only required one parking spot per unit while Coquitlam required two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tsur Somerville is one of the authors of the study and he said it seemed like Kelowna took to the challenge of building more housing as a priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe government in Kelowna took it as a serious exercise of something they wanted to achieve. And so, as a result, they didn’t just change the rules, they changed the process. And almost, you could say, the philosophy of the process,\u201d he told iNFOnews.ca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study compared similar lots that were rezoned for multi-unit housing and found that developers built less than 10 units a year on average between 2019 and 2024, and in Kelowna developers built around 75 a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In October 2024, Coquitlam registered 184 new homes in multi-unit buildings, including apartment buildings, and Kelowna registered 408.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The provincial government passed legislation, like Bill 44, to force municipalities to update their housing bylaws to allow for more multi-unit housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thomas Davidoff, another one of the study\u2019s authors, said cases like this are why it\u2019s important to keep an eye on how local governments implement laws that come from higher up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTelling municipalities they have to allow new housing is sort of like telling your kids they have to make their bed. You don\u2019t know how long it’ll take for that to happen and how many reasons that it can’t happen,\u201d Davidoff said. “Municipalities can come up with excuses.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Somerville said a lot of the focus can land on the policy and not how it\u2019s implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHousing supply is not just what you can build, but how easy it is to build it. And that latter part is really, really important about looking at sort of two places that essentially had the same \u2018what,\u2019 but had very two different approaches to the \u2018how\u2019 and then had very different outcomes,\u201d Somerville said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Telling municipalities they have to allow new housing is sort of like telling your kids they have to make their bed. Municipalities can come up with excuses.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":547,"featured_media":7603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"guid":"","source":"","byline":"","published":"","updated":"","_infotelid":"","_prepressid":"","_multisite_post_sync":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1680,541,543],"tags":[],"region":[322,323,324,325],"class_list":["post-7602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-local","category-topnews","region-kamloops","region-kelowna","region-penticton","region-vernon"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/inhome-hd-mediaitemid97651-2416.jpg","post_modified":"2025-09-04T08:23:44","post_modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T15:23:44","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/547"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7602"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=7602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}