BC NDP Housing Policies Are Driving Young Families Out of British Columbia
SURREY, BC: Linda Hepner, MLA for Surrey-Serpentine River and Opposition Housing Critic, is calling for an urgent review of urban containment boundaries to open land for family housing. A new global housing study has confirmed what British Columbians already know: housing is impossibly unaffordable, and government policy is to blame.
According to researchers at California’s Chapman University, prices have “surged — especially in markets governed by urban containment strategies.” These strategies, designed to limit urban sprawl, have choked the supply of land for family housing, causing prices to skyrocket in places like B.C. The result? Middle-income families are being forced to flee the province in record numbers.
“British Columbia is experiencing the largest exodus in decades,” said MLA Hepner. “Nearly 70,000 young people have left this province in a single year. That should be a wake-up call to Premier Eby.”
Instead of tackling the root cause, the NDP continues to push their ideologically driven anti-single-family housing policies that prioritize high-density micro-units: 500 sq. ft. condos that 30- and 40-year-olds are unable to raise and establish their families in. The government’s so-called “housing target orders” are anti–homeownership and are failing to meet the needs of middle-class families who are desperate for home ownership of townhomes, duplexes, and single-family homes — not vertically-integrated micro-boxes in overcrowded urban cores.
“The NDP’s plan is not working for working families,” said Hepner. “We need to open up new land to build new towns with ground-oriented, family-friendly housing that young British Columbians can afford. That means reviewing urban containment boundaries and investing in infrastructure to make it happen.”
The Chapman University study exposes the flawed assumptions behind the NDP’s density-at-all-costs approach. It confirms that restricting land for housing has created a structural affordability crisis — not just in Vancouver, but across the entire province.
“We cannot fix this crisis by jamming more high-rises into existing neighbourhoods,” said Hepner. “We need to build new communities for the next generation with affordable ground-oriented housing — or we will lose our young, working people to Alberta and Ontario.”
The Conservative Party of B.C. is calling for immediate action:
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A review of outdated urban containment boundaries
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Investments in infrastructure to unlock new lands
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A clear plan to rapidly build affordable, ground-oriented housing
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Policies that prioritize families, not developers
“It’s time to stop managing the illusion of progress and start building real solutions,” Hepner concluded. “The NDP is failing the middle class. The Conservative Party of BC will deliver the attainable homes families want — and can afford.”
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