This #NationalHousingDay, the clock is ticking for BC municipalities as the deadline for Interim Housing Needs Reports looms. At this critical moment in an every-evolving housing landscape, our team of housing planners came together to comment on the potential of the required Interim Housing Needs Reports (HNRs).

At Urban Matters, we’re deeply invested in helping communities across BC and Western Canada tackle some of the most pressing housing challenges of our time. From housing affordability to supply shortages, the impacts of BC’s housing crisis are far-reaching. They affect low—and middle-income earners, impact local economies, and transform the social fabric of communities as rising housing costs contribute to growing inequity.

As part of the Province of BC’s ongoing efforts to address these challenges, 2019 saw the introduction of legislative requirements for Housing Needs Reports. Since then, our team has collectively developed over 60 Housing Needs Reports, equipping communities with the data needed to respond to housing needs and not simply demand. This year, with the enactment of Bill 44 –  the Housing Statutes (Residential Development) Amendment Act in 2023, the Province further ramped up housing reform, requiring local governments to complete Interim Housing Needs Reports by the end of 2024.

While we see Bill 44 as a pivotal step toward increasing housing diversity and density, we also recognize it comes with some challenges. Requiring local governments to update zoning bylaws to permit small-scale multi-unit housing (SSMUH)—like secondary suites, triplexes, and fourplexes—this bill is promising in that it aims to bring more housing options to areas traditionally reserved for single-family homes. Bill 44 also eliminates public hearing requirements for residential developments aligned with Official Community Plans (OCPs) and mandates regular OCP updates to reflect 20-year housing projections.

Interim Housing Needs Reports are essential to this process, helping communities align zoning updates with real housing needs. While these new requirements don’t make it simple for local governments who have to juggle tight timelines, resource constraints, and sometimes competing priorities, the Interim Housing Needs Report do provide an excellent opportunity for local governments to support local housing policy with the potential to support solutions tailored to unique community contexts.

What Are Interim Housing Needs Reports?

Interim Housing Needs Reports are a foundational step to understand and quantify local housing challenges. They must include three elements:

• An estimate of the number of housing units required to meet both current and anticipated needs over the next 5 and 20 years;
• A statement outlining the importance of building housing near transportation infrastructure that encourages walking, cycling, public transit, or other sustainable forms of transportation; and,
• A description of the steps local governments have taken since the last Housing Needs Report to address housing challenges.

To learn more about BC’s Interim Housing Needs Report requirements, click here: Housing Needs Reports – Province of British Columbia (gov.bc.ca)

Why These Reports Matter

Municipalities are required to review and update their official community plans (OCP) and zoning bylaws to ensure they can accommodate the 20-year housing needs, as calculated using the new provincial methodology.  

An OCP serves as a blueprint for how a community will grow and develop – it covers things like where housing, parks, businesses, and roads should go. Zoning bylaws, on the other hand, are the detailed rules that decide what can be built where. Regular updates to OCPs are important because communities change over time and housing needs shift.  With Bill 44, communities are now tasked with integrating broader housing options—like townhomes, apartments, and other multi-unit developments—into their plans to meet future demand and address affordability gaps.

Interim Housing Needs Reports not only help communities comply with these updates but also guide prioritization. They enable local governments to identify key areas of focus, ensuring their housing actions address the most pressing needs.

Going Beyond the Basics

This is where we tell you about all the opportunities associated with the Interim Housing Needs Reports. As mentioned previously, meeting the new provincial requirements is non-negotiable. However, communities can go above and beyond the minimum requirements for Interim Housing Needs Reports to better understand their challenges and identify the needs of specific populations. This can include conducting targeted public engagement, disaggregating data for equity-deserving groups, identifying areas for future data collection, improving tracking and monitoring of housing needs, collecting core housing need data for specific populations, and performing affordability analyses for both rental and ownership markets.

The District of Saanich which neighbours the City of Victoria has experienced significant growth and housing pressures since its previous Housing Needs Assessment. For their Interim Housing Needs Report, our team supported the District to expand on the provincial requirements, including a section looking at core housing need of equity-deserving populations. Using HART data, the section showcased the rates of core housing need of groups such as Indigenous, visible minority, immigrant status, and women-led renter and owner households. This additional level of analysis creates insights into the unique housing situations of equity-deserving households and, alongside engagement findings, can inform the path to building more equitable housing systems.

Similarly, in our work supporting the City of New Westminster, a social and equity lens was applied to the City’s Interim Report, going beyond ticking the provincial guideline boxes. Instead of simply estimating the number of units needed to reduce homelessness, the City focused on more granular insights – calculating how many shelter beds and supportive and transitional housing units are required to meet the diverse needs of the community. Recognizing that housing is about more than numbers, the report shone a light on populations often overlooked in traditional planning. It identified housing needs for seniors, individuals with substance use disorder, and those requiring mental health supports, while also exposing data gaps for other key groups. By highlighting these gaps, the City not only acknowledged their importance but also signaled the need for improved data collection to better understand and serve these populations in the future.

To tackle the question of affordability, we worked with the City of New Westminster to create a comprehensive affordability analysis that asked the essential question: What is affordable, and for whom? The analysis revealed the income levels needed to access market rentals and homeownership by unit size and type, starkly illustrating the gap between the reality of median incomes and the cost of housing in New Westminster. This approach ensured that the report not only identified challenges but also had the potential to empower decision-makers with the insights needed to drive meaningful, equity-focused housing solutions.

Urban Matters has been working with several communities to offer more detailed housing projections, providing tenure, affordability, and bedroom number breakdowns for the next five years. This information can help local governments track whether their new housing supply is aligned with the needs of their community.

Planning for the Future

Local governments in BC have until December 31, 2024, to complete their Interim Housing Needs Reports. With both the approaching deadline and regular updates to come,  communities have an opportunity to think strategically about how these documents can be used to inform long-term housing goals. Beyond meeting the baseline requirements, communities should consider what additional data and analysis could help them create meaningful, actionable housing strategies that address their housing challenges in a more targeted and impactful way.

At Urban Matters, we are committed to supporting local governments as they navigate these new requirements, offering guidance and expertise to ensure that their housing strategies are informed, data-driven, and effective in meeting the needs of everyone in the community.  Across BC, our team is grateful for the opportunity to support communities pushing the boundaries of what Housing Needs Reports can achieve, putting the housing supply on a path that aligns with every community’s unique needs.