For Renters
Victoria's rental vacancy rate has climbed to 3.3% — the highest since 1999 — and that progress is fragile. One economic cycle could throw the city straight back into a 1.6% crisis. This framework locks the gains in: more homes, real protections when redevelopment comes, transparent access, and a tax bill that stops quietly inflating your rent. Every measure is costed, proven elsewhere, and reported quarterly in public.
This is the same framework as the full Program — same measures, same numbers, same jurisdictional caveats — read through a renter's eyes. Every measure named here is costed and sourced in the master, and every number links back to it.
← Back to the frameworkMore homes, so you have real choices
- A 5% vacancy target, honestly measured (Measure 8). Pre-zoned missing middle with no rezoning hearings for duplexes and triplexes, targeted DCC reductions for purpose-built rental, expedited permits for below-market projects. And an honest KPI: vacancy is published alongside median asking rent, so a vacancy gain from falling demand is never dressed up as a supply win.
- Supply with the right composition (Measure 6). 12,000+ net new homes by 2030 — at least 30% purpose-built rental and 15% below-market or non-market with BC Housing.
- Legalize the suites that already exist (Measure 8b). Thousands of secondary suites operate outside the permit system — uninspected, uncounted, unprotected. A 24-month amnesty brings them in on a life-safety standard, with tenant protection built in: legalization is not a ground for eviction and not an occasion for a rent reset.
Protection when the redevelopment notice arrives
- Demoviction protections with teeth (Measure 9). 12+ months notice for major redevelopment, moving costs indexed to local rents, a documented right of return, and mandatory replacement rental units at a published below-market rate with priority for displaced tenants. More housing AND fewer displacements — not one or the other.
- A Renters' Hub (Measure 9). One digital and physical front door for tenant rights: plain-language guides, sample letters, direct referral to legal aid, and case management for seniors and vulnerable tenants facing displacement.
- Short-term rental licensing that protects the long-term pool (Measure 9b) — so homes house residents first.
- Vacancy control between tenancies (Measure 9c) — labelled honestly. That power is provincial. The City cannot enact it; we will advocate for it, and we say so plainly instead of promising what is not ours to deliver.
Fair access, visible queues
- A transparent allocation system (Measure 10). One portal, documents uploaded once, public point-based criteria, your real position in the queue visible — and no outside intervention possible. No queue-jumping, no political favours.
A home that cannot cook you
A maximum-temperature rental bylaw (Measure 64). In the 2021 heat dome, 619 British Columbians died of heat — 98% of them indoors, most of them alone. On the New Westminster precedent: at least one room of every rental unit at or under 26°C during declared heat warnings, phased in over 24 to 36 months, compliance by the landlord's choice of portable cooling, heat pump, or built-in cooling. This is a habitability standard, like a smoke detector — not a climate debate.
Your rent includes City Hall's bill
Landlords pay property tax; tenants pay it through rent. Four straight years of above-inflation increases — 9.34% on residential in 2026 alone — flow through to you. The framework caps the residential rate increase at 6.5% in Year 1, 5% in Year 2, then roughly inflation plus growth, funded by verified savings (Measures 65 and 15, and the Taxpayer Guarantee, Measures 66 to 66d). Add first-hour free parking (Measure 75) and modern contactless transit fares (Measure 21), and the everyday costs move in your direction too.
Also in the framework for you
- Faster permits mean more homes sooner (Measures 7 and 7b). Published approval targets by category and a pre-approved pattern book for missing-middle housing — permit speed is supply speed, and supply is your bargaining power.
- City land for non-market homes (Measure 6b). The land bank operationalized: city-owned sites released through a competitive process scored on affordability and speed to completion, not just price.
- Fewer people falling out of housing (Measure 11). Housing-First and STEP throughput, counted quarterly — a system that catches people before the street is a rental market with less desperation in it.
- A city that notices renters in their twenties (Measure 13c). Victoria's 18–25s get deliberate outreach and a stake — because the city's future households should not be an afterthought.
- Better buildings to rent (Measure 60). Climate Friendly Homes retrofits expanded with published uptake — insulation and heat pumps that overlap the 26°C compliance path, so comfort and the rulebook arrive together.
Your Victoria in 2030
It is moving day, 2030, and it is boring — in the best possible way. Vacancy has held near 5% for three years, so you chose between three apartments instead of begging for one. When your last building sold for redevelopment, you got a year's notice, moving costs indexed to real rents, and a documented right of return — two of your old neighbours are already back in the new building at the published below-market rate. Your suite is legal and inspected. Heat-warning weeks are uncomfortable now, not dangerous: one room stays under 26°C, and that is simply the rule. Your place on the non-market waitlist is a number on your phone, not a rumour. And your rent stopped quietly absorbing double-digit tax increases, because the City capped the rate, published the whole bill, and refunded what it over-collected. Renting in Victoria stopped being an emergency. That was the point.
How you hold us to it
Quarterly public scorecard: rental vacancy at 5% (row 4), homes delivered by composition (row 3), unsheltered homelessness cut by half (row 5), and the tax cap (row 1). Every number published, green or red. You do not have to trust anyone — you can check.