Are Developer Fees Responsible for Vancouver's High Housing Costs?

"The high costs of development could be helping to drive up housing prices in the city of Vancouver, figures provided to The Vancouver Sun by the Urban Development Institute show."

"Various city development fees, community amenity charges and sustainability requirements add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of building a condominium unit in the city of Vancouver," continues Tracy Sherlock. "Vancouver charges far more than Burnaby and Surrey, the figures show.

Anne McMullin, president and CEO of the Urban Development Institute, argues that those costs are either passed along to homebuyers or work to limit the amount of viable housing projects.

"But Brian Jackson, the City of Vancouver’s general manager of planning, says market demand drives the price of housing much more than the costs of development."

“'If we took $1,000 off the cost of the CACs or we took $1,000 off the cost of the DCLs,' Jackson said, referring to two types of city development fees, 'is the developer going to take $1,000 off the cost of selling the house? I don’t think they would – they’re going to get the highest price that they could.'”