Getting to Groundbreaking, but not Build Out: From Formation to Failure in a Regional Housing Indicators Collaborative

Abstract

Getting to Groundbreaking (G2G) is a housing indicators project formed in 2013 that brought together home builders, industry associations, municipalities, the regional government, and academic urban researchers around a common interest: to understand what works in housing development regulation and planning across the Metro Vancouver region of British Columbia, Canada. The project aims were to inject new, credible information into the discussion of regulation of land and housing development. The project investigated trends in the provision of housing, surveyed opinions and practices amongst municipalities, homebuilders and the public, and collected information on new innovations in regulating the provision of housing. The G2G 2014 report detailed the cost, timing and regulatory best practices involved in the development approvals process for new town houses, and the G2G 2016 report examined these factors related to woodframe apartment buildings. The Metro Vancouver region is marked by high regulatory costs and long time frames for housing development, with considerable variability at the municipal level. However, G2G data does not indicate any relationship between lower regulatory costs and less time in the regulatory process and a lower cost of housing. In the context of the politically charged debate about the cost and regulation of housing, we detail the collaborative industry-researcher-government multistakeholder partnership approach taken by G2G and discuss the divergent interests in data transparency, and the politics of participation and control that pervaded the G2G project. In 2016, the G2G partnership broke down as a result of these unresolved questions, leaving unclear how much collaboration can be expected to offer the practice of urban indicators work in a heated political terrain.