The Board of Metro Vancouver is meeting on Friday and is expected to address issues around housing affordability and spending.
Ahead of the meeting, Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim said that he wants to reverse the Development Cost Charge fee hike that went into effect on Jan. 1.
“We are going through a housing affordability crisis right now and on the docket today, Metro actually wants to make housing even more unaffordable by charging really high development charges and speaking to home builders, they’re barely making ends meet right now,” Sim said.
“And so this would be absolutely devastating if we’re trying to solve an affordability crisis. So we’re here to express the fact that things have to change or we might as well give up on building homes in the city of Vancouver and the region.”
Development cost charges help fund regional water and liquid waste infrastructure.
Under the new charges, developers say that it will cost about $14,000 more to build an apartment building in the region.
Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke echoed Sim’s concerns, saying cities are looking to keep taxes as low as possible.
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“So to see Metro Vancouver just continually increase them with no thought to that … it’s just not only inappropriate, it’s unconscionable,” she said.
“We have to be considerate of what we are in at this time in 2026. We’re in an extremely downturning economy and we need to do better. And it’s unfortunate that Metro Vancouver isn’t reacting likewise.”
Last year, a Deloitte review of Metro Vancouver’s governance structure described the 41-member board as “large and unwieldy.”
Deloitte made 41 recommendations for reform, including addressing payments for travel and board member stipends of $1,094 for attending meetings that exceed four hours.
The report also recommended establishing a new board structure that can provide more effective governance and oversight.
The audit was ordered amid a series of problems, including a $3.5-billion hike in the anticipated cost to finish the Northshore Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Locke said that Metro Vancouver has “lost its way.”
“They’ve grown far too big,” she said. “They have used scope creep to take them into places that they have lost their core reason for being. And their core reasoning for being is truly water. They do a great job on that. It’s sewer, and they do a good job on it. It’s not all these ancillary things.
“And so they need to really get down to looking at what are their core responsibilities.”
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