2025 year in review

Connecting transportation and livable, resilient communities

Transit is essential to connect people and communities. This year, we centered the experiences of multilingual equity-deserving riders and insights from transit experts to strengthen our region’s transit system.  

We:

• Hosted 10 multilingual conversations with equity-deserving riders  

• Convened a transit dialogue at Vancouver Climate Day 2025

• Co-designed Transit’s Next Top Funding Model, an event hosted by Movement: Metro Vancouver’s Transit Riders 

We published: 

• Travelling across Canada by bus, an overview of intercity bus routes taken by YouTuber Miles Taylor as he travelled across the country exclusively by bus 

• The reality and opportunity of intercity transit in B.C., a rider’s perspective on B.C. transit systems

• How does Vancouver’s transit compare, expert insights from Christof Spieler on how our region’s transit stacks up against other major cities and where we can improve 

• Rapid, frequent, dependable and safe, conversations with equity-deserving riders on their experiences and hopes for transit

• A quick guide to Metro Vancouver’s transit system, a look at how our regions’ transit system operates 

Value-added housing

We took a deep dive into BC Builds to better understand the program, create practical resources and convene groups working to accelerate housing development timelines. 

We:

• Celebrated BC Builds’ first anniversary with the launch of BC Builds: A case study 

• Co-hosted two workshops with BC Builds to equip local governments and First Nations with tools to accelerate housing projects in their communities

• Joined an episode of BC Housing’s Let’s Talk Housing podcast  

• Presented BC Builds case study insights to elected officials across B.C.

We published:  

• BC Builds: A case study, a comprehensive look at programs origination and first year of implementation 

• BC Builds: A policy brief, key strategies for implementation and replication, summarized from the case study 

• A videos series featuring development experts from across the province sharing lessons learned from BC Builds projects

Building housing on faith-based lands

Faith-based lands offer an important opportunity to address Canada’s housing shortfall. This year, we worked with faith-based groups to develop a framework for those exploring housing development. 

We: 

• Hosted two workshops to gather input for our Pre-feasibility framework

• Presented our Pre-feasibility framework to CMHC’s Expert Community on Housing community of practice and at the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association conference

• Met with City of Vancouver councillors to discuss this work and how it can inform cities collaborating with faith-based groups on affordable housing

We published: 

• Pre-feasibility framework for facilitators working with faith-based organizations, to guide groups through early housing development decisions 

Housing that connects us

We joined Hey Neighbour Collective and Happy Cities’ continuing work supporting local governments in enabling low carbon, climate resilient and socially connected multi-unit homes.  

We:

• Co-hosted a cross-sectoral workshop exploring nature-based solutions as social infrastructure in new builds and retrofits

• Co-hosted Building Social Connections in Practice, national training workshops for planners across Canada

• Presented to UBC Urban Forestry and Wellbeing undergraduate students 

• Showcased our work at Housing Central with Hey Neighbour Collective

We published:

• Building Social Connections: Case studies to inspire socially connected multi-unit housing that supports connection, wellbeing and inclusion 

• From green spaces to connected places, workshop insights and illustrations for more connected, resilient multi-unit homes

• An infographic of common nature-based solutions for multi-unit residential buildings in B.C. 

• A backgrounder on the potential of nature-based solutions, key barriers and potential solutions

Low carbon buildings

Low carbon, climate-resilient buildings are essential for thriving communities. This year, we continued work to address insurance and financing barriers for mass timber construction and partnered with Affine Climate Solutions on innovative financing solutions. 

We:

• Shared our mass timber resources with 375 planners and 325 elected officials from 40 local B.C. governments

• Hosted a roundtable with building industry leaders to identify barriers and solutions to reduce mass timber insurance costs and risks 

• Connected BCIT School of Construction and the Environment and Structural Timber Association (United Kingdom) for a knowledge-sharing session

• Moderated a Woodrise 2025 panel on local leadership in urban housing

• Co-hosted two workshops in Vancouver and Toronto with Affine Climate Solutions on financing low-carbon, resilient buildings and real estate 

We published:

• Advancing mass timber: Risk mitigation and insurance strategies for a thriving sector, a pathways guide for the sector to reduce barriers for scaling mass timber construction 

• Financing solutions to accelerate low-carbon, resilient construction workshop primer and report back with Affine Climate Solutions

• Keynote by Dr. Maryam Golnaraghi on safeguarding home insurance by reducing exposure and vulnerability to extreme weather

Community connections

Alongside our core programming, we collaborated with partners whose work complements ours and helps build cross-sector connections on challenges cities face. 

We:

• Co-hosted a workshop with Renovate the Public Hearing on lessons from local governments using resident assemblies 

• Engaged with elected officials at the Lower Mainland Local Government Association conference 

• Facilitated at dialogues hosted by SFU Centre for Dialogue, SFU Climate Innovation and Pembina Institute