A new poll suggests a majority of British Columbians want municipalities to approve more housing options and speed up the development process.
But the poll itself was conducted on behalf of the very developers who want to see more building across the province.
According to the poll from Ipsos on behalf of the Urban Development Institute (UDI), 75 per cent of respondents want local governments to explore more options for housing within single-family neighbourhoods, including duplexes, townhomes and apartments.
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It also found 71 per cent of those surveyed think the approval process for those housing projects takes too long and needs to be fixed, which the UDI says is contributing to the affordability crisis in B.C.
“Municipalities can take as long as five years to approve a new rental proposal,” the institute’s president and CEO Anne McMullin said in a statement. “And, it can take another two to three years to get permits and build.
“We want to build them but all too often homebuilders are met with delays, relentless bureaucracy and a piling on of municipal and provincial taxes and fees.”
The poll surveyed 1,001 residents across B.C. between May 7 and 15.
It found sizeable majorities in favour of several other questions that take aim at municipal and provincial governments and housing affordability.
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Those include whether respondents believe too few housing options are leading to high rents (74 per cent), whether additional taxes and “red tape” have made housing less affordable (also 74 per cent), and whether they saw no increase in affordable housing choices over the past two years (71 per cent).
Seventy per cent of those surveyed also said government actions haven’t improved housing affordability, while 68 per cent said governments aren’t doing enough to promote new housing construction.
“Families, workers, seniors and students need housing options now,” McMullin said. “More studies, lengthy planning reports and task forces won’t solve the problem.”
The UDI said it will focus its efforts towards improving the approval process to get development approved faster and building more housing options close to transit, which the poll found 80 per cent of those surveyed support.
The poll had a margin of error of 3.5 per cent 19 times out of 20.