Guidance
Proactive Planning

March 14, 2025

Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs



Land Acknowledgement

The BC Public Service acknowledges the territories of First Nations around BC and is grateful to carry out its work on these lands – it acknowledges the rights, interests, priorities, and concerns of all Indigenous Peoples – First Nations, Métis, and Inuit – respecting and acknowledging their distinct cultures, histories, rights, laws, and governments.

Table of Contents

Land Acknowledgement

Introduction

Proactive Planning Snapshot

Implementation Timeline

Integration with Other Local Government Housing Initiatives

Housing Needs Reports

Interim Housing Needs Reports

Regular Housing Needs Reports

Aligning OCPs and Housing Needs Reports

OCP Requirements for All Local Governments

Additional OCP Requirements for Municipalities

Going Beyond Minimum Requirements

Aligning Zoning Bylaws and Housing Needs Reports

Calculating Zoning Capacity to Align with HNRs

Calculating Maximum Potential Zoned Capacity

Method 1 – BC Assessment approach

Method 2 – Census data approach

From Theoretical Capacity to Realistic Uptake: Calculating incremental build-out density of pre-zoning

Method 1: Trends Assessment

Method 2: Complex Build-Out Modeling

Changes to Public Hearings

A Shift Towards Upfront Engagement

Best Practices and Considerations

Complete Communities

First Nations Engagement

PlanningTogetherBC: Integrating Land Use and Transportation Planning for Thriving Communities

Heritage Conservation Act

Mass Timber

More Information

Appendix: From Theoretical Capacity to Realistic Uptake: Calculating incremental build-out density of pre-zoning

Introduction

In the Fall of 2023, the Province passed a suite of legislation to shift to a more proactive planning and zoning approach, collectively known as the local government housing initiatives. This shift will enable more housing to be built in the right places, faster. The new framework emphasizes long-term planning to ensure that enough land is designated and pre-zoned to meet both current and future housing needs. By offering more flexibility and 'room' for new housing, this approach reduces the delays, costs, and risks typically associated with site-specific rezoning decisions, while providing a wider selection of pre-zoned sites for both market and non-market housing development.

Key proactive planning changes were made to the Local Government Act (LGA) in November of 2023. This included updated requirements for Housing Needs Reports (HNRs), official community plans (OCPs), zoning bylaws with HNRs, and changes to the public hearing process for housing projects.

This guidance is intended to help local governments navigate the new proactive housing planning framework and meet the upcoming legislated deadlines. Periodic updates and additions will be made, as necessary.

Proactive Planning Snapshot

The specific changes to the LGA that relate to proactive planning are introduced here. However, more detailed explanations, along with specific implementation guidance, are provided in later sections of this document.

Housing Needs Reports (HNR)

Aligning OCPs and Zoning Bylaw with Housing Needs Reports

1 The seven classes of housing need for which statements are required in HNRs are: affordable housing; rental housing; special needs housing; seniors' housing; family housing; shelters for individuals experiencing homelessness and housing for individuals at risk of homelessness; and housing in close proximity to transportation infrastructure that supports walking, bicycling, public transit or other alternative forms of transportation.

Public Hearings

Implementation Timeline

The following timeline highlights key deadlines, summarizing important dates for aligning HNRs, OCPs, and zoning bylaws.

Integration with Other Local Government Housing Initiatives

The proactive planning measures introduced in the Fall of 2023 are components of a broader suite of changes to the local government land use planning framework. These changes are designed to complement and work together to enable local governments to provide more housing, in the right places, faster.

Key pieces of legislation that will interact with the proactive planning framework include:

Housing Needs Reports

Part 14, Division 22 of the Local Government Act (LGA) along with the Housing Needs Report Regulation provides the updated legislative requirements and timing for HNRs, which includes the requirement to use a standard methodology (the HNR Method) to support more robust, consistent and comparable understandings of local housing needs.

The timing of HNRs now follow each census data release, which helps ensure all reports are based on the most up-to-date information and that other, non-census-based datasets are collected around the same time, improving comparability.

The summary below provides a high-level HNR overview. For comprehensive guidance, including detailed legislative and regulatory requirements, technical guidance to calculate the HNR Method, FAQs, and link to the BC Data Catalogue and the HNR calculator, please visit Housing Needs Reports – Province of British Columbia (gov.bc.ca)

Interim Housing Needs Reports

By January 1, 2025, all local government councils and boards must have received Interim HNRs and published them online on an internet site that is publicly and freely accessible.

The Interim HNR has three new, additional content requirements:

  1. The number of housing units required to meet current and anticipated needs for the next five and 20 years (calculated using the standardized HNR Method);
  2. A statement about the need for housing in close proximity to transportation infrastructure that supports walking, bicycling, public transit or other alternative forms of transportation; and
  3. A description of the actions taken by the local government to reduce housing needs since the most recent HNR.

After the Interim HNR, municipalities will have until December 31, 2025, to complete their first OCP and zoning bylaw updates to allow (plan and 'pre-zone') for the number of units identified in the Interim HNR.

Regional districts are not required to update their OCPs and zoning bylaws by December 31, 2025; however, future OCP updates must align with the most recent HNRs, including incorporating housing policies respecting each class of housing needs.

Regular Housing Needs Reports

The first 'regular' HNR must be completed and received by December 31, 2028, and every five years thereafter. Regular HNRs must include the following content:

Regional districts must include this required content for each electoral area (except those that are exempt).

For full details, refer to the Summary of Legislative and Regulatory Requirements for Housing Needs Reports.

The HNR Method

The HNR Method calculates the total number of housing units needed over five and 20 years. It consists of six components, which are added together to provide the total number of housing units needed in a municipality or regional district electoral area. The six components include:

  1. Supply of units to reduce extreme core housing need (those paying more than 50% of income for housing);
  2. Supply of units to reduce homelessness;
  3. Supply of units to address suppressed household formation;
  4. Supply of units needed to meet household growth over the next five or 20 years;
  5. Supply of units needed to meet at least a 3% vacancy rate; and
  6. Supply of units needed to meet local demand (the "demand buffer").

The "Demand Buffer"

Also known as the Demand Factor, this component helps ensure that in calculating the total number of housing units needed over 5 and 20 years, the HNR Method accounts for the units required to meet "healthy" market demand, beyond the minimum required to house current and anticipated residents.

It is only included in the calculation for municipalities.

The demand buffer helps reduce pressure in the housing system and ensures the market can meet the needs of diverse groups, including growing families seeking larger homes, seniors downsizing, and households wanting to reduce their commute and live closer to jobs or schools.

To support local governments in applying the HNR Method, UBC's HART team released the HNR calculator in July 2024. The HNR Calculator's data is current to the application of the Interim HNR. The HNR Method Technical Guidance provides more information, as well as step-by-step instructions for those wishing to apply the HNR Method using Microsoft Excel.

HNRs and Housing Targets: What is the difference?

HNRs and Housing Targets serve different purposes for addressing housing need in BC. Although the two methods were co-developed to ensure consistency, there are several distinctions. The HNR Method calculates the total number of housing units required to meet unmet needs, current demand, and anticipated growth over both a 5-year and a 20-year period, whereas Housing Targets focus exclusively on the 5-year current and anticipated needs and set a minimum compliance threshold of 75%. Additionally, to comply with the Housing Supply Act, Housing Targets are aimed at a smaller set of communities facing particularly significant housing challenges, while HNRs are required for all local governments.

NOTE: A municipality's OCP and zoning bylaw must align with their most recent HNRs to demonstrate capacity to accommodate the 20-year HNR unit number, however the 20-year unit numbers are not targets and do not set a requirement to build or report on construction of these units.

Aligning OCPs and Housing Needs Reports

An OCP sets out a long-term vision for the future, including broad goals and policies for land use, transportation, housing, economic development, recreation, the environment, and community services. OCPs use land use designations (e.g., residential, commercial, industrial) to define the intended use of land. The shift to a more proactive planning framework continues to rely on OCPs to guide community growth, with a greater emphasis on ensuring adequate density for new housing development.

The details about OCPs and HNRs as outlined in Part 14, Division 4 – Official Community Plans of the Local Government Act are summarized below.

OCP Requirements for All Local Governments

When developing or updating an OCP, all local governments (including municipalities, regional districts, or local trust committees) are required to consider the most recent HNR and the data that support it to ensure the OCP reflects current housing needs and trends (LGA s. 473.1 (2)). Additionally, when developed or amended, all OCPs must include:

OCP Housing Policies

Local governments must ensure their OCP includes policies that address each of the seven classes of housing need listed above. There is flexibility in how such policies are structured – multiple policies can address a single class of housing need, and a single policy can apply to multiple classes of housing need. Beyond the seven specified classes, local governments may also want to include policies addressing other types of local housing need.

Additional OCP Requirements for Municipalities

In addition to the requirements detailed above, there are additional requirements for municipalities, which do not apply to regional districts and local trust committees:

A key reason for limiting these requirements to municipalities is to help limit sprawl and focus development to existing urban areas, which are more likely to have established infrastructure and services and less exposure to hazards compared to the largely rural electoral areas within regional districts.

Going Beyond Minimum Requirements

New or updated municipal OCPs must comply with the new legislative requirements, as detailed above. However, for some local governments there may be value in going beyond minimum requirements to help plan for and support the delivery of both the housing that addresses specific local housing needs, as well as all of the complementary land use, amenities, services, and infrastructure required for complete communities. Examples of how this can be achieved include:

Aligning Zoning Bylaws and Housing Needs Reports

OCPs outline the long-term vision for communities, setting broad policy goals and designating land use categories (e.g., residential, commercial, industrial) that define the intended use of land. While these designations guide future growth, zoning bylaws are the tools that implement the land use visions of OCPs by regulating how land, buildings, and structures may be used.

In the past, zoning bylaws were often not updated to align with OCPs. As a result, changes to land use, even when desired by local governments and supported by the broader community during OCP development, were often subject to lengthy and expensive site-specific rezoning processes.

To address these challenges, municipalities must review, and, if necessary, adopt a zoning bylaw to permit the necessary use and density to accommodate at least the 20-year total number of housing units identified in the most recent HNR (LGA s. 481.7 (1) and (2)).

Calculating Zoning Capacity to Align with HNRs

While the LGA requires that the OCP and Zoning Bylaws of a municipality must provide for at least the 20-year total number of housing units required to meet anticipated housing needs, the LGA does not prescribe a method for calculating zoned housing capacity.

This section offers suggested best practices for municipalities to effectively zone for their 20-year housing needs, however, municipalities have the flexibility to identify their own methods and to determine where density is best located in their communities, while also considering future growth beyond the 20-year number.

Some important considerations when updating zoning bylaws to meet the 20-year total number of units identified in the HNR:

Calculating Maximum Potential Zoned Capacity

The information included in this section has been excerpted from the Provincial Policy Manual & Site Standards: Small-Scale, Multi-Unit Housing (gov.bc.ca) – Appendix D (page 86) and adapted for this guide to provide an overview of zoning best practices. While municipalities have the flexibility to develop their own approaches and determine the most suitable locations for density, the following method offers guidance on calculating density distribution based on HNRs.

Determining the maximum net increase in units, however, requires an extra step to align the unit calculations from the maximum build-out, to count against the existing units (the homes that currently exist within those zones). This second step can be completed by using data from either the most recent Statistics Canada Census or BC Assessment.

Approaches using both data sets are outlined below:

Method 1 – BC Assessment approach

  1. BC Assessment (BCA) produces a standard yearly digital dataset called the BC Building Information Report. This report is available to all local and regional governments from BCA free of charge.
  2. This report can be structured to indicate the number of units at the parcel scale. This can be achieved by identifying all parcels with single detached actual use codes and assigning them a value of 1 and all parcels with secondary suite actual use codes and assigning them a value of 2.
  3. Net increase in units can be calculated by using the selections and totals generated in the section above less the values determined in step b above. These increases can be used at the disaggregated level or summarized to the municipal level as appropriate.

Method 2 – Census data approach

While lacking in spatial specificity, this technique can be used to rapidly determine the net increase in units against a 2021 baseline through the steps below:

  1. An individual jurisdiction's Census Profile can be accessed through Statistics Canada. This profile contains the number of dwelling units by jurisdiction.
  2. Total increases in units can be determined by deducting the Census value from the totals determined in the maximum build out density.

From Theoretical Capacity to Realistic Uptake: Calculating incremental build-out density of pre-zoning

Note: this information was originally developed for the Provincial Policy Manual & Site Standards: Small-Scale, Multi-Unit Housing (gov.bc.ca), Appendix E, page 89. The information has been excerpted and adapted for this guide (Please see the Appendix for additional information):

While calculating the maximum potential zoned capacity, also known as the "paper" capacity, provides an essential baseline for understanding how many housing units could theoretically be developed, it is important to assess the realistic uptake. The "paper" capacity often represents an ideal scenario, but in practice, various factors such as market demand, infrastructure constraints, and economic conditions will influence how much of this capacity will actually be useable. Municipalities should consider these real-world factors to ensure that their planning efforts are aligned with actual development patterns and community needs.

The following section summarizes two suggested methods to consider how the paper capacity will align with actual uptake.

This simpler approach relies on historical data from the Census and BC Assessment (BCA) to estimate development uptake under various scenarios. By analyzing trends in dwelling types and growth patterns, municipalities can develop annual absorption rates and adjust for market conditions, infrastructure, and other factors to project realistic future development.

Method 2: Complex Build-Out Modeling

This advanced method involves detailed data analysis, including geospatial and numerical modeling, to create sophisticated development scenarios. This approach requires input from GIS experts and land economists to model redevelopment potential, considering zoning, market conditions, and constraints. The result is a highly accurate build-out model that forecasts community development over a 20-year period.

Changes to Public Hearings

A Shift Towards Upfront Engagement

The proactive planning framework marks a shift from the previous approach to housing planning and approvals, which relied on individual rezoning processes and community engagement for each site. The new framework focuses on long-term planning to ensure sufficient land is designated and pre-zoned for current and future housing needs, streamlining projects by avoiding time-consuming, costly, and uncertain rezoning processes.

A key part of this shift involves early and upfront public consultation to plan for new housing. This consultation needs to happen before the OCP is updated and must meet legislative requirements outlined in LGA s. 475, including a public hearing (LGA s. 477 (3) (c)). OCP processes typically provide more opportunities for engagement and input than rezoning processes and allow for residents to better understand how much and what kinds of additional housing are needed.

This proactive, upfront approach is designed to gather and consider community input earlier in the process. Consequently, once an OCP is updated, a local government cannot hold a public hearing if a proposed zoning bylaw (rezoning) for a housing project aligns with the OCP (LGA s. 464 (2)).

For such OCP-consistent zoning bylaws, the legislation does not require local governments to announce that there is no public hearing being held; however, the local government will need to issue a public notice (LGA s. 467) that the zoning bylaw is moving through the approval process. Local governments can still opt-in to public hearings for OCP-consistent rezonings for non-residential land uses (e.g., commercial, industrial).

Best Practices and Considerations

Beyond the legislated requirements, there are a range of best practices that local governments can adopt to enhance their proactive planning efforts.

Complete Communities

The Complete Communities Guide serves as a best practice resource, offering a comprehensive approach to integrating housing, daily needs, transportation, and infrastructure to build more resilient communities. This approach supports the proactive planning approach, helping local governments achieve their community development goals effectively.

Complete communities provide a diversity of housing to meet identified community needs and accommodate people at all stages of life, and provide a wider range of employment opportunities, amenities, and services within a 15- to 20-minute walk. Complete communities can be more efficient to service with infrastructure and have the potential to reduce community greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with transportation.

Creating more complete communities can support a range of identified community goals and offer many interrelated benefits, including (but not limited to):

More information, including the Complete Communities Guide is available on the Complete Communities webpage.

First Nations Engagement

When updating OCPs, local governments should engage with First Nations through collaboration and proactive communication, fostering government-to-government relationships. These efforts contribute to inclusive decision-making and support reconciliation in BC.

Local governments are encouraged to incorporate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act in their planning processes.

For more guidance, visit: Local government and First Nations relations – Province of British Columbia.

The Indigenous Housing Needs Data Resource Library, created by the Aboriginal Housing Management Association, provides key data points and direct links to resources that can help local governments assess housing needs and vulnerabilities within Indigenous communities. Access the Indigenous Housing Needs Data Resource Library – Aboriginal Housing Management Association.

PlanningTogetherBC: Integrating Land Use and Transportation Planning for Thriving Communities

PlanningTogetherBC is an integrated planning framework that seeks to align transportation and land use planning for smart and coordinated growth in British Columbia. The integration of transportation and land use planning can achieve more affordable communities, offer better housing options, increase economic opportunities, provide more sustainable transportation options, reduce GHG emissions, and result in more resilient communities.

OCPs describe the location and degree of future growth within a local government's jurisdiction, suggesting where development and traffic patterns may change over time and providing insights as to where multi-modal transportation investments may be needed to support growth. The transportation section of an OCP typically outlines a community's policies, plans and priorities for transportation such as future transit routes, arterial widening, and active transportation routes. The integrated planning framework allows decision-makers to see how population growth, housing supply, transportation and utility infrastructure are connected within a complete system.

Local governments are encouraged to engage with the Ministry of Transportation and Transit early in their planning processes, particularly in situations where growth is being located near a controlled access highway. A coordinated cross-jurisdictional approach to planning will enable transportation investments and land use decisions to create complete communities that are healthy, affordable and resilient.

For more information on Integrated Planning at the Ministry of Transportation and Transit, please visit: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/transportation/transportation-infrastructure/transportation-planning/planningtogetherbc.

Heritage Conservation Act

The Heritage Conservation Act (HCA) encourages and facilitates the protection and conservation of BC's unique cultural heritage. Archaeological sites are granted automatic protection through section 12.1 of the HCA and are afforded protection whether they are recorded or as-yet unrecorded, located on public or private land, and whether they are intact or disturbed.

Local governments play an important heritage conservation role, and when undertaking infrastructure improvements, maintenance or other land altering activities, they are responsible for avoiding or mitigating impacts to protected sites. Local governments can also inform citizens of their responsibilities under the HCA and may act as proponents responsible for ensuring development projects have appropriate studies and permits.

The BC Archaeology Branch (Archaeology Branch) recommends local governments include information regarding archaeological site management in their OCPs to help landowners and developers understand their responsibilities surrounding provincially protected archaeological sites. Entities who proceed with development and encounter a heritage object or site protected under the HCA during land altering activities must stop work immediately and cease work until appropriate HCA permits are in place.

For further information, local governments can contact the Permit Connect team to better understand provincial permitting requirements. More information is available at: https://permitconnectbc.gov.bc.ca.

Mass Timber

Mass timber is at the forefront of construction innovation. Mass timber offers a sustainable, low-carbon alternative to concrete and steel, while minimizing disruption to local communities. As a renewable material, it generates 25%–40% fewer GHG emissions over a building's lifecycle, helping local governments achieve their climate and sustainability goals.

Created by bonding smaller pieces of wood into large structural components, mass timber is precision-cut off-site and arrives ready for installation. This allows buildings to be erected up to 30% faster than concrete and steel with a smaller crew – reducing congestion, noise, waste disposal, and pollution in surrounding neighborhoods.

To reach our climate, housing, and economic goals, building construction needs to speed up, control costs, and streamline. Municipalities can take proactive steps to make it easier to build with mass timber, such as:

For more detailed information, visit SFU Renewable Cities Local Prefab Mass Timber Solutions or contact the Office of Mass Timber Implementation.

More Information

The content of this guide is not a substitute for legislation, nor should it be relied upon as legal advice. Users of this guide should seek legal advice, as necessary. To help facilitate implementation of these changes, the Province will continue to update guidance and FAQs to support local governments.

More information on local government housing initiatives is available on the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs website at: https://www.gov.bc.ca/housingInitiatives

Please direct any questions about this legislation to:

Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs,
Planning and Land Use Management Branch
Email: PLUM@gov.bc.ca

Appendix: From Theoretical Capacity to Realistic Uptake – Calculating incremental build-out density of pre-zoning

Note: this information was originally developed for the Provincial Policy Manual & Site Standards: Small-Scale, Multi-Unit Housing (gov.bc.ca), Appendix E, page 89 and has been excerpted and adapted for this guide.

Method 1: Trends assessment – a simpler approach

The trends assessment approach is a basic method that uses readily available data to build assumptions about the development uptake of units under multiple scenarios. The informational basis for this approach is tied to longitudinal information from either the Statistics Canada Census or BC Assessment (BCA) data, whichever is more readily available.

1. Data development: detailed information with regards to the growth in dwellings across different zones is available from either the Census of Canada or BCA. Each of these datasets can be structured to build assessments in the following ways.
a. Census data:

Census profiles from 2006, 2016, and 2021 can each be accessed from Statistics Canada for any given local government. Each of these profiles will contain a report on the quantity of dwellings unit by structural type of dwelling2. This information can be reviewed and categorized to correspond to specific zoning designations, for example:

  • Semi-detached House → Duplex can be used as a proxy for a 3- 4- or 6- plex;
  • Row House → Can be used as a proxy for a 3- 4- or 6-plex;
  • Apartment or flat in a duplex → Can be used as a proxy for a Secondary Suite3.
Each of these above dwelling types can be summarized longitudinally in order to build basic annual absorption rates by dwelling type.
b. Assessment data:

BC assessment data contains information on the quantity and type of buildings based on their year of construction. For the purposes of this exercise, it is necessary to discern how many units by type are constructed each year. This can be done by using BCA's Actual Use Code (AUC) and the BCA "year built" fields. Pertinent actual use codes could include:

  • 32 - Residential Dwelling with Suite → Secondary Suite;
  • 33 - Duplex, Non-Strata Side-by-Side or Front / Back → Duplex;
  • 34 - Duplex, Non-Strata Up / Down → Duplex;
  • 35 - Duplex, Strata Side-by-Side → Duplex;
  • 36 - Duplex, Strata Front / Back → Duplex (all of which can be used as proxies for a 3- 4- or 6-plex);
  • 39 - Row Housing (Single Unit Ownership) → Can be used a proxy for a 3- 4- or 6-plex;
  • 41 - Duplex, Strata Up / Down 47 → Can be used a proxy for a 3- 4- or 6-plex;
  • 48 - Triplex → 3- 4- or 6-plex; 49 - Fourplex → 3- 4- or 6-plex;
  • 52 - Multi-Family (Garden Apartment & Row Housing) → Can be used a proxy for a 3- 4- or 6-plex;
  • 53 - Multi-Family (Conversion) → Can be used a proxy for a 3- 4- or 6-plex.
Like the Census method above, each of the above unit types can be summarized from 2006 in order to build basic annual absorption rates by unit types.
2. Assumptions development: given the data developed above, the following assumptions should be generated:
a. Historic absorption rates by unit type → Summarize units and divide by 15 (regardless of method), this is the basic annual absorption rate
b. Unit growth factor → a percent modification based on a considered review of market conditions to determine the increase in annual absorption over the baseline rate detailed above.
c. Other absorption rate assumptions → additional constraining factors such permitting times, escalating costs, declining provincial growth that can modify the growth factors detailed above.
d. Infrastructure and servicing assumptions → constraining factors as they relate to increased servicing requirements that may mitigate against the development of certain unit types.
3. Current state development: based on calculations described above, the current state of units can be used to net out the incremental increase in units based on the trends to be calculated in step five (5) below.
4. Maximum possible capacity analysis: the maximum unit capacity should be determined to construct a maximum bound for the trend to be calculated in step five (5) below.
5. Trend assessment: using the information from steps 1 and 2, growth rates should be developed that reflect historic trends and mitigating factors. Growth rates should not exceed the maximum capacity of units in step four (4), nor should they be so extreme as to double or triple the number of units within a 20-year time frame.
6. Buildout modeling: growth rates should be transformed into annual absorption rates to determine the net annual number of units that may be constructed over time. This incremental increase in capacity can be subsequently used to inform infrastructure considerations which are discussed in Part 3, Section 6 of the Provincial Policy Manual & Site Standards: Small-Scale, Multi-Unit Housing (gov.bc.ca).

2 https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/ref/98-500/001/98-500-x2021001-eng.cfm

3 Note that detached coach homes are treated as single detached dwellings and are therefore challenging to isolate from that grouping.

Method 2: Complex Build-Out Modeling

The complex build-out modeling approach is an advanced method that uses readily available data to construct likely development scenarios under current economic conditions. This approach should be led by a qualified GIS expert in conjunction with a land economist and local government staff, including development planners and long-range planners. The effort requires significant levels of data structuring and advanced geospatial and numerical modeling. Despite its complexities, this approach will yield highly accurate results that can be used for infrastructure impact analyses and other value-added analyses as appropriate. Each step of this method is detailed below.

1. Data Development

Data to be considered for this effort should include BCA data, BIR data, as well as any information regarding conceptual, proposed, or in-progress developments, environmental or infrastructural constraints to development, along with local government policies and regulations pertaining to allowable uses, density, and built forms. Subsequently, the BCA data should be processed such that a reasonable baseline of buildings in the community can be developed at the parcel scale.

This baseline will include information on the use of each parcel, the assessment classification code and occupancy code of the parcel, the number of units, the construction year of the structures, the total built floor area, and the total land and improvement values. In addition, relevant municipal policy information, development permit data, and constraints data should be extracted and applied to the parcels.

The outcome of this process will be a fully attributed baseline dataset that presents an up-to-date snapshot of all development considerations in the community at the parcel scale. This data can be used for value-added purposes in any current-state-style assessment. This information will be used to determine the potential for a parcel to redevelop under normal economic conditions.

2. Assumptions Development

Given the zoning bylaws that suggest a discrete potential development typology for any given parcel, it is crucial to develop a representative set of modeling archetypes, each of which will act as parametric guidelines in the modeling. The archetypes will have two major components:

  1. Built Form Assumptions – These are the design considerations that will guide the minimum parcel size, minimum floor-plate size, density, height, setback, and usage of a particular development. They are crucial for determining the economic viability of a potential use as well as the resulting form. The key components include density, coupled with maximum or achievable FARs (Floor Area Ratios) and setbacks, all of which may impact the ultimate built form of the location, the total potential floor area of the development, and the resulting potential hypothetical profit of the development given the input land and construction costs.
  2. Development Context Assumptions – These assumptions relate to the contextual milieu by which a particular building type will be permitted. Typically, this forms a table of allowed uses by land use type and local plan area, but occasionally additional overlays are considered, such as development permit areas, location-specific overrides, or other policy considerations (such as agricultural interface), on a case-by-case basis.

Secondly, absorption rate scenarios should be developed. These will be used to determine the cadence of development once redevelopment potential is evaluated. This will require the following efforts:

These inputs will be refined into 2 to 3 scenarios which will define the cadence and volume of development in the community from the near term (3 years out) to 20 years. As these scenarios could have a significant impact on how the community will build out, they should be tested for realism and require both input and sign-off by relevant municipal planning and engineering staff in advance of finalization.

3. Current State Development

Using the information developed in Step 1 above, it is imperative to score all qualifying parcels in the community to determine how the urban fabric may change over time. This effort is required to add a degree of realism to this incremental build-out effort and should be used to evaluate development potential, which reflects a market response to zoning policy, land availability and costs, housing and employment demands, access to transit, as well as locational contexts more generally.

The core of this modeling step is to establish a "redevelopment" score for a given location. To establish development likelihood scores, a modeling team should consider some combination of the following market factors:

Regardless of the factors used, the second stage of this step is to reduce or constrain the development potential of a given location using a standard set of constraints (potentially including, but not limited to flood plains, hazardous/complex terrain, potentially contaminated sites, locations of indigenous cultural significance, interface considerations, etc.), which should act in three separate ways:

The final stage of the redevelopment model is to score all parcels based on the net of redevelopment potential and constraints. Scores are typically assigned at a sub-municipal level either by policy context, location context, or some combination thereof. This is done by design since developing a comprehensive municipal score comparing lower-value outlying parcels and higher-value inner-city parcels does not yield useful information.

4. Maximum Possible Capacity Analysis

As detailed in earlier calculations in the section above, the maximum unit capacity should be determined to construct a maximum bound for the trend to be calculated in Step 5 below.

5. Development Likelihood Analysis

Once the redevelopment potential has been quantified and the development archetypes have been defined, intermediate processing of all parcels in the community should be conducted to determine which development archetype would work best on a site-by-site basis. These efforts should include:

6. Build-Out Modeling

Steps 1 to 5 above will result in a preferred potential development outcome for each parcel in the community that has development potential. Theoretically, this outcome represents the maximum logical capacity of a community absent any considerations regarding unit absorption rates (i.e., the rate at which units sell in an area in a given time period), permitting speeds, or labor considerations. To refine this maximum capacity into a reasonable sequence of development, it is therefore necessary to apply the absorption rate scenarios as defined in Step 2 above to the preferential development outcomes in Step 5 to develop an annual build-out of the community over a 20-year period. This will result in a numerical build-out that indicates for each qualifying zoned parcel, the potential year of development, the resulting development type, floor area, and number of units.

These units can subsequently be converted into population or equivalent development units (EDUs) as appropriate for the local government's needs using agreed-upon multipliers (either from standard BC best practices or using trended municipal data or a combination of both). Summary data can be produced for milestone years, as appropriate, and should be accompanied by maps and graphs for rapid review and iteration.

The technical work should be finalized based on clear acceptance criteria from a local government that should be developed during project initiation. Specific criteria could include, but may not be limited to: