Metro Vancouver's DCC Moment of Truth

On Wednesday, April 15, the Metro Vancouver Board votes on whether to roll back the 2026 development cost charge hike and reduce the 2027 increase — or cave to staff pressure and leave builders holding the bag. ICBA has been fighting for a year to get DCCs down, and this is the moment that matters. Metro staff are pushing directors toward a half-measure that locks in the 2026 increase and delivers almost nothing for housing. Here's the letter ICBA President Chris Gardner sent to every MVRD director ahead of the vote:

Tomorrow you have a decision that will shape housing in this region for the next decade. I'm writing to urge you, plainly and directly, to vote for Roll Back and Reduce.

In January, you gave staff a clear instruction: roll back the 2026 DCC increase, reduce 2027, and stretch the transition to a 1% assist factor. You did that because you've heard from builders, from buyers, from mayors, from associations like ours, and from economists, that Metro Vancouver’s DCCs have become a wrecking ball for housing supply. Water DCCs tripled. Parkland DCCs jumped overnight. A new apartment in Surrey or Burnaby now carries tens of thousands of dollars in Metro fees alone, before a single municipal charge is added on top.

Staff have come back with a report that recommends, in effect, that you do nothing: “Receive for information.” Their preferred alternative – Leave and Freeze – keeps the 2026 hike fully in place, offers a watered-down 2027 reduction, and asks you to tell the construction industry to come back next year. That is not what you directed. It's not what this housing market can survive.

Let me address staff's objections head on:

“The budget is set.” Yes – and boards amend budgets all the time when the facts change. The facts have changed. Starts are down. Projects are stalling. Unsold inventory is piling up. Every week of delay is homes that don't get built.

"$389M is too big a gap." That number is a mirage. It assumes every unit staff expect to be built actually gets built at the new, fully-loaded rates – and the market is telling us loud and clear that won't happen. You can’t collect DCCs on towers that never break ground. Metro’s 2027–2031 revenue forecast rests on permits pulled in 2026 and 2027, the very years these rates are crushing pro formas. Lower rates on projects that actually proceed will out-earn higher rates on projects that die on the drawing board.

And even if you take staff’s $389M estimate at face value: the real gap in 2026 is just $15M, against $446M in DCC reserves sitting in the bank. Staff confirm reserves fully cover year one. Even if staff refuses to find other efficiencies from 2027–2031, their Option A costs the average household $30 in 2027 and $23 in 2028 — less than a monthly streaming subscription — to unlock thousands of new homes and the property tax base that comes with them. Option B (borrowing) pushes the debt service ratio up roughly one percentage point. These are manageable trade-offs. A frozen housing market is not.

“Growth should pay for growth.” It’s sounds nice but this model is broken and does not work. Growth can't pay when growth doesn't happen. It has been widely reported that the residential housing market has collapsed. Pre-sales in Q1 of this year totalled less than 100, in a normal quarter they should be about 2,500. It is frustrating to hear elected officials and their staff constantly talk about an affordability crisis in housing, yet ignore the pleas and solution offered by the people who work every day to build homes.

The DCC curve staff designed assumes a volume of new construction that the current fee structure is actively suppressing. You're choking off the very revenue stream you claim to be protecting.

“No refunds are possible for 2026.” Correct – which is exactly why every week you delay costs builders real money on real permits. The sooner the amended bylaw passes, the sooner the relief takes effect. Leave and Freeze delivers zero dollars of 2026 relief. Roll Back and Reduce delivers relief from the day the bylaw is adopted.

Leave and Freeze is the safe-sounding half-measure that protects staff from tough decisions and finding efficiencies while builders continue to pay the full 2026 hike. Don’t accept it. You made the right call in January. Finish the job tomorrow.

ICBA and our 4,500+ companies — the people who actually build the homes, take the risk, and hire and train people in construction in the Lower Mainland — are asking you to:

1. Give three readings to Amendment Bylaw No. 1452 under Alternative 2 (Roll Back and Reduce);
2. Use reserves to cover the $15M 2026 gap;
3. Choose Option A or Option B to bridge 2027–2031 — not Option C, and not Leave and Freeze.

The Board led on this in January. The region and its builders are watching to see if you’ll follow through tomorrow.

Chris Gardner
President & CEO
Independent Contractors and Businesses Association