Provincial Housing Directives

The Province has fundamentally changed the rules for housing in West Vancouver.

New legislation affects most residential lots in neighbourhoods that have historically been characterized by single-family housing. Separate provincial directives also require substantially higher density in Ambleside and the Park Royal-Taylor Way area.

Under Bill 25:

• Most residential lots must allow up to four homes.
• Lots near frequent transit may allow up to six homes.
• The District cannot require off-street residential parking on six-unit properties.

These changes are being imposed by the Province. They are not optional, and they significantly reduce local control over housing development.

An equally important question is how much authority West Vancouver will retain over the way growth occurs.

• Can we require setbacks and open space sufficient to retain mature trees?
• Can we control lot coverage and massing?
• Can we prevent buildings that overwhelm neighbouring properties?
• Can we meaningfully protect privacy, access to sunlight, and the character of our streetscapes?
• And can we impose those requirements if they make it difficult to achieve the amount of housing the Province says must be permitted?

These are not minor technical questions. They will determine how much control West Vancouver retains over the future character of its neighbourhoods.

That matters in a community where trees, topography, setbacks, gardens, privacy, and the relationship between homes and the landscape define the character of many neighbourhoods. The question is not simply how many units a lot can contain, but whether the District will retain enough control over the form and footprint of development to protect those qualities.

Residents must have a clear understanding of what the District can still influence and what has been removed from local discretion.

The impact may not be immediate. High construction costs could slow redevelopment, and many homeowners may have no interest in building additional units. But we cannot assume that means little will change.

West Vancouver needs to consider not just what is likely to be built under today's conditions, but what these rules could allow over the coming decades.

Today's economics may mean relatively few owners choose to redevelop. But the zoning applies whether or not it is used immediately, and properties will change hands over time. What is not financially viable today may become viable tomorrow. We should understand the long-term consequences now rather than assume current market conditions will protect neighbourhoods indefinitely.

Expanded development rights may also affect land values, property assessments, and property taxes, making it important that residents fully understand the financial implications of these changes.

My position is straightforward: while the District must comply with provincial legislation, we should use every available tool to protect neighbourhood character, preserve green space, and ensure that new development fits our community.

The Province has already demonstrated how far it is prepared to intervene.

In April 2026, the Province used an Order in Council to amend West Vancouver's Official Community Plan and impose the Ambleside Centre Local Area Plan.

West Vancouver must comply with the law, but a provincially imposed plan need not become our permanent vision for Ambleside.

We should be preparing now for the day when local authority over Ambleside’s future may once again be restored.

Rather than waiting for that possibility, the District should continue engaging the community and refining a clear, community-endorsed vision for Ambleside’s future.

If a successful legal challenge, legislative change, change in provincial government or policy, or other development restores greater local authority, West Vancouver should not have to start from scratch. We should be ready.

Ambleside will change. The issue is not whether it changes, but who decides what it becomes.

The Province has directed West Vancouver to prepare a Local Area Plan for the Park Royal–Taylor Way area that meets minimum densities and heights prescribed by the Province.

This deserves close attention. Park Royal is an important bus hub, but bus service should not be confused with rapid transit such as SkyTrain. West Vancouver remains heavily dependent on buses operating on a constrained road network that already experiences significant congestion. Calling development "transit-oriented" does not, by itself, create additional transportation capacity.

The scale of change contemplated is substantial. The provincial directive requires minimum heights of 12 storeys and 4.0 FAR within 200 metres of the designated Park Royal centre point, and 8 storeys and 3.0 FAR within 200 to 400 metres. District estimates suggest this could accommodate approximately 3,000 to 4,000 new homes—more than double the 1,200 to 1,800 units previously envisioned for the area. These are minimum requirements, not upper limits.

Importantly, these estimates do not include any future development that may be proposed by the Squamish Nation on its lands in the area.

Before development on this scale proceeds, residents deserve clear answers to several important questions:

• what traffic impacts this amount of development could have on Taylor Way, Marine Drive and the Lions Gate Bridge approaches;
• what additional transportation capacity would actually be provided;
• what water, sewer and other infrastructure improvements would be required;
• what the cumulative impacts would be on surrounding neighbourhoods and community services; and
• who would pay for the infrastructure required to support it.

There is also a broader issue at stake.

The Province's transit-oriented development legislation gives it considerable authority to designate transit-oriented areas and prescribe minimum densities and heights around them.

West Vancouver should therefore be extremely cautious about accepting the premise that proximity to transit, by itself, justifies substantially greater density.

Transit should support development. A transit label should not be used to justify density that the transportation system cannot actually support.

Infrastructure should lead growth, not struggle to catch up with it.

Increasing housing capacity is not the same as producing housing people can afford.

Older apartments and homes often provide some of our more affordable housing. Redevelopment may add units, but the new housing—reflecting today's land and construction costs—is usually much more expensive than what it replaces.

The measure of success should not simply be how many units are approved or built.

We should ask what will be lost, what will replace it, what the new housing will cost and whether it actually meets an identified housing need.

Perhaps relatively little development will occur under these policies in the next few years. We cannot afford to treat that as a reason to ignore their long-term consequences.

The time to protect the choices we may want ten or twenty years from now is before those choices disappear—not after.

West Vancouver should use every authority it retains, challenge assumptions that are not supported by evidence, document the infrastructure and financial consequences of provincially imposed growth, and continue pressing the Province where its policies do not make sense for our community.

Where local authority has been taken away, we should be ready to exercise it again if and when it is restored.

Change is inevitable. Losing the ability to shape it is not.

We should not gamble the long-term character of our community on the assumption that development will not occur because today's economics make it difficult.

The decisions being made now will shape West Vancouver for decades to come.