Dear editor,
David Eby has announced his new cabinet with great fanfare along with his plan for 100 days of action.
One of his first measures is Bill 44, which amends the Strata Property Act to, among other things, eliminate all strata corporation bylaws restricting rentals and all minimum age bylaws other than those for people over the age of 55.
The purpose supposedly is to increase the supply of rental properties given the present extreme shortage. In Eby’s rushed approach to solving the rental problem, he has completely ignored the fact that there is also a housing shortage.
All this bill does is exacerbate the housing crunch in an effort to score political points. It will not add a single unit to the overall housing market.
What this ill-thought-out bill will do, however, is create a land sale market for speculators to buy up strata homes to put in the rental market. They will be out-bidding young families who have been saving for years in the hope of buying a townhouse, shattering their dream once again. These speculators will have no commitment to maintain the properties to the standard homeowners in stratas work hard to achieve. They will vote down spending resolutions at AGMs in the interest of maximizing profit. When the majority of units in a strata are owned by speculators, existing homeowners will lose all influence over the future of their property and their biggest investment in their future.
While Bill 44 may put more rental units on the market it will do so at the expense of those trying to enter the housing market. It will be a great boon to speculators and property managers who I sincerely hope are not Eby’s intended beneficiaries.
Yes, there is a lot of work that needs urgent attention but if future legislation receives as little forethought as Bill 44, 100 days of action will be 100 days of horror.
I voted NDP in recent elections, but not again.
Ken Kemper,
Comox