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BC Ministry of Housing-UDI Freedom of Information response of over 3000 pages, is finally posted publicly on the Province’s website.

The identical FOI request was also made to several other Ministries, including the Ministry of Municipal Affairs (MUNI) which has since been merged with the Ministry of Housing. That FOI response was posted publicly on the Province’s website earlier.

The FOI responses revealed vast amounts of lobbying from the development industry that shaped Provincial Housing Policy over the last several years.


By Sasha Izard
Aug 19, 2025

The original Ministry of Housing UDI FOI response to the request that I made well over a year ago, returned over 3000 pages.  It has served as vast source of information for CRD Watch articles showing the lobbying that shaped Provincial housing policy over the last several years.  It is now finally posted publicly on the Province’s website (after many weeks of asking for it to be posted):

Catalogue details page – Province of British Columbia

• Response_Package_HSG-2024-40860.pdf (561.7MB)
  
  The request was as follows:
  
  All communication records between the Ministries selected and the Urban Development Institute (UDI), including records referencing UDI. Any records of meetings between the UDI and the Province of BC found in the Ministries selected including but not limited to: minutes, agenda items, videos, transcriptions etc. of or recordings regarding such meetings.
  
  (Date Range for Record Search: From 1/1/2020 To 3/28/2024)
  

Note: As is common with such FOIs, what the Province would like the public to to see tends to be at the very top.  Look for the what is in the details throughout.

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I made the same FOI request to several Ministries. The response from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs was also particularly interesting and correlating the results to those found in the Ministry of Housing FOI yielded a remarkable history of powerful lobbying influence over the Province:

Catalogue details page – Province of British Columbia

Response_Package_MMA-2024-40862.pdf (189.5MB)

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See also:

Index of articles revealing major lobbying influence on B.C. Provincial Housing Bills and Housing Targets. – CRD Watch Homepage

Public release of UDI March 10, 2022 presentation slides, agenda, and lobbying letters to David Eby. – CRD Watch Homepage

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 Development and Real Estate Lobby Pressed Mandatory Housing Targets, Mass Upzoning, Captured Official Community Plans, and Made the Shutting Down of Public Hearings the Norm in British Columbia Under the NDP Government – CRD Watch Homepage

Ministry of Municipal Affairs Presentation from April 13, 2022 provides a glimpse on the processes that led up to the Housing Bills (Bills 44-47) that were put forward in the Fall of 2023. – CRD Watch Homepage

Index of articles regarding lobby events and other meetings between government and lobbyists. – CRD Watch Homepage