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Notes from UDI Exec


By Sasha Izard

Jan 4, 2024


On November 10 2021, the Executive Director at the time, of the Office of Housing and Construction Standards (OHCS) which was under the Ministry of Attorney General and Ministry Responsible for Housing (the Minister was David Eby at the time) shared to various OHCS bureaucrats for review, what is referred to in the Freedom Information file as “Notes from UDC Exec”.

Was this the UDI’s Executive Committee that meets with the government, or was it from a UDI Executive? The file does not elaborate. 2 days previously, the the Attorney General/Minister of Housing David Eby, had received a lobbying letter from the UDI by Anne McMullin, now the President and CEO of the UDI Pacific Region.

As has been seen elsewhere in the FOI response, such letters often attended meetings between the Province and the UDI’s Executive Committee. Was that the case here? Indications suggest this to be likely, but it is difficult to confirm, as the Province has been highly evasive regarding discussing the UDI’s Committees that it meets with.

The Urban Development Institute (UDI) is a registered lobbying organization that represents the interests of hundreds of paying corporate members involved in development and real estate.

The information for this article was obtained by Freedom of Information from the Ministry of Housing and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

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2 days after the Nov 8, 2021 UDI lobbying letter sent by McMullin to Eby on November 10, 2021, the man who is at the time of writing Executive Vice President of the UDI (Michael Drummond), contacted the Attorney General’s branch to share a series of complaints made recently by Rick Illich, who is now at the time of writing the Chair of the UDI Pacific Region (the main branch of the UDI) based in Vancouver.

Among the complaints regarding what were referred to as “Non-market housing project delays due to processing disfunctions and Inter governmental brinksmanship” were:

Some of these issues will look familiar to some readers. More interesting though, were the “Notes from UDI Exec” sent by the Executive Director of the Office of Housing and Construction Standards (OHCS) at the time, which appears to be in response to the message he had received regarding: “Non-market housing project delays due to processing disfunctions and Inter governmental brinksmanship” only a few hours earlier that morning.

The section of the above notes that I find particularly interesting is this one:

The New Zealand model was referenced by the Minister of Housing Ravi Kahlon as the housing Bill 44-47 were being rammed through the Legislature in the fall of 2003.

See also: Famed New Zealand study may not really show mass upzoning works | Vancouver Sun

“Minimum requirement, within radius of transit, that requires minimum of 6 story zoning and eliminating parking minimums”, sounds remarkably like Bill 47 that would emerge 2 years later.

“Upzone large areas (not just around transit)” sounds a lot like Bill 44. Setting DCC and CAC rates also sounds quite familiar. Wouldn’t the purpose though not be to drive development, but to deliver affordable housing? Well who are they kidding.

4 months after this on March 10, 2022, a lengthy lobbying letter was presented by the UDI in conjunction with a major meeting that took place with the UDI Executive Committee and David Eby, which appears to have set into key motion the events that would lead to the Bill 43 the Housing Supply Act, and the other housing bills, a year and a half later, you can read more about this in the following article:

https://crdwatch.ca/2024/11/22/freedom-of-information-reveals-that-the-province-of-b-c-was-working-to-implement-what-the-registered-lobbying-organization-the-urban-development-institute-had-been-pushing-for-this-culminated-in/

5 days later on March 15, the Assistant Deputy Minister of the OHCS wrote:

Note: MDE was an abbreviation for Minister David Eby. (p.29 of Ministry of Municipal Affairs FOI)
S.13 means that policy advice, or recommendations were censored by the government from public view.





Read also: Internal Audit Slammed BC Housing Deal in Victoria | The Tyee

See also: Freedom of Information reveals that the Province of B.C. was working to implement what the registered lobbying organization, the Urban Development Institute, had been pushing for. This culminated in the recent Housing Bills that override local government authority on zoning.  – CRD Watch Homepage

How the proposed “RapidBus” lanes in the Capital Region, including on McKenzie, were used as part of the UDI development lobby’s push for enforced densification/upzoning along rapid transit corridors, during their lobbying to David Eby in 2022 – CRD Watch Homepage