Open Collections

Waldkirch, Peter Eric

University of British Columbia

There is currently a wave of legislative reform underway in which senior levels of government intervene in land use zoning, which has been almost exclusively under the control of municipal governments in American and Canadian legal practice (among other places). Driven by widespread housing shortages, these reforms are broadly aimed at loosening municipal restrictions on housing production. Urban areas that have only allowed single-family homes have been a particular focus. British Columbia has joined other jurisdictions in enacting land use reforms. The City of Vancouver suffers from a particularly acute housing shortage and is one of the least affordable cities in the world. This thesis reviews the reforms taken in two examples of this legislative reform movement—California and New Zealand—in order to critique the effectiveness of the British Columbia reforms to date. However, most theories of property law are ill-suited to support such a critique. Traditional theories focus on the related concepts of exclusion and use, and conceive of intrusions on an owner’s dominion as incidental to ownership. Under zoning, however, the restrictions are not incidental, but fundamental: all uses are forbidden except those specifically allowed. This thesis applies Gregory Alexander’s theory of “property as propriety”, which focuses on the social nature of property and its role in fostering substantive views on the proper ordering of society, to zoning powers. Applying this lens, the author identifies three chief values underpinning Vancouver’s dominant urban-pastoral system of values: privileging low-density residential neighbourhoods separated from commercial uses; a structural status quo bias; and a link between regulating built form and social hierarchies. As an alternative, the author proposes a principle of abundant housing: the legal system should, in a given area, support housing in sufficient quantity to meet demand in that area. Despite positive elements, British Columbia’s reforms are expected to be largely ineffective in addressing Vancouver’s housing shortage. In addition to several technical weaknesses that limit their applicability to the City of Vancouver, by failing to address the City’s reliance on discretionary housing approvals, the reforms are expected to be insufficient to substantially improve Vancouver’s housing shortage.

Text

2025-04-09

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/90619

Law

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/