Housing Action Plan
Housing affordability is a huge challenge for our region and for UBC. Providing affordable housing is an important part of community wellbeing and it supports the recruitment and retention of faculty, staff and students. The UBC Housing Action Plan is a 30-year strategy for how the university uses the campus lands and financial resources to support UBC community housing choice and affordability.
Key Elements of the Housing Action Plan
- Up to 40% of new campus neighbourhood development will be rental.
- At least 25% will be faculty/staff below-market rental and up to 15% will be market rental for those who work or study on campus.
- A rent-geared-to-income program for low- and moderate-income faculty and staff.
- Faculty home ownership support through low-interest and forgivable loans.
- Increasing on-campus student housing to at least 17,300 beds (from 14,000).
Student Housing
Nearly 14,000 students currently live in student housing on the Vancouver campus. By providing student housing, UBC takes pressure off the local rental market, saves students commuting time, and brings more vibrancy to campus. The university has built thousands of new student housing beds in the past decade and plans to increase on-campus student housing to 17,300 beds by targeting at least 3,300 new beds and 1,000 replacement beds as a priority, with timing and project delivery subject to demand, prioritization, financing and funding capacity.
Faculty and Staff Housing
UBC supports a range of housing options for faculty and staff. These include the Faculty Home Ownership Program, which provides loans to help make home ownership more affordable. It also includes nearly 1,000 units of non-market rental housing on-campus and one of the world’s first university rent-geared-to-income staff and faculty programs.
Housing Action Plan Updates
A ten-year review of the Housing Action Plan was completed in 2023. The review integrated with the Campus Vision 2050 public engagement and planning process to ensure alignment between the long-term plans for campus growth and UBC’s policies to improve housing choice and affordability.