The story behind one of my stories.
I’ve been covering the issue of development cost charges (DCCs) since January 2023, including inflationary increases in Surrey and deferrals in Vancouver, well before the discussion went mainstream later that year when Metro Vancouver found itself in a standoff with Sean Fraser.
So, after I broke the news last month that Metro Vancouver was about to reduce its DCCs, after years of advocacy from developers, the question I had was “What happens now?” For The Globe and Mail, I talked to Brad Jones from Wesgroup and Rob Blackwell from Anthem to answer that question and why the core issue of how infrastructure is funded will continue to loom over the industry until at least 2029.
Check out the story and stay tuned for a few more of my stories in The Globe and Mail coming soon.
The big headlines.
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Westbank’s 35-storey Joyce 2 rental tower at 5083 Joyce Street in Vancouver, which has substantially completed construction, has been placed under receivership by OPTrust, which is owed $109 million, as first reported by The Realist last week.
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One small detail that stuck out to me is that the interest rate of the loan had a clause that it would escalate to “the lesser of the highest rate permitted by law or the sum of 10% plus the Interest Rate” in the event of a default or the loan maturing. I’ve covered between 50 and 100 insolvency cases across Canada and I do not recall ever seeing “the highest rate permitted by law” before. I asked a broker with experience in insolvencies and they confirmed that it is very rare to see that.
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Shout out to the Vancouver Sun (and Insolvency Insider) for crediting me with breaking the news. In their follow-up, the Sun also reported that ex-VP of Development Rhiannon Mabberley recently stated in an affidavit that “I verily believe that Westbank is in a financially precarious position” and that “I am aware that Westbank has laid off nearly half of its workforce.”
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I’m interested to see how this situation is resolved. As I mentioned in the paywalled portion of my article, OPTrust confirmed to me that they have “taken over ownership” of Westbank’s WB1200 project in Seattle, which they rebranded last week. Is that where Joyce 2 is headed?
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Fractional real estate investment platform Addy has officially initiated bankruptcy proceedings and a sales process, and Anthem has submitted a stalking horse bid to buy its proprietary software and IP, as first reported by The Realist last week.
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The national office vacancy rate is projected to return to pre-pandemic levels — around 8% — by 2029, according to Colliers. For Storeys, I took a closer look at metrics like average in-office mandate, leasing activity, right-sizing, and the median unit size lease-up rate.
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Business In Vancouver spoke to City of Vancouver GM of Planning Josh White about the Higher Buildings Policy update.
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The Province published a new notice last week about its proposed PST expansion.
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Home sales were down 2.5% year over year in April in Greater Vancouver and up 7.2% in the Fraser Valley.
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CMHC published its 2025 Annual Report and announced CMHC Prefab Plus, a new mortgage insurance product for prefab and modular construction.
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Prospera, Coast Capital, and Sunshine Coast Financial have officially completed their merger.
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Macroeconomics and the debt market is not an area of expertise for me, but it is for Impact Commercial. For The Realist, they shared their perspective on what’s happening right now and whether there are signals amidst all the noise.