Citified's Ten on the 10th is a monthly question-and-answer segment connecting our readers with the insight and knowledge of Victoria's top real-estate and business professionals.

 

Ten on the Tenth's June, 2025 segment features Niall Paltiel, President, Island View Land Management, and a councillor in Greater Victoria's Central Saanich municipality.

 

Asking the questions is Ross Marshall, Senior Vice President of the Victoria offices of commercial real-estate brokerage CBRE. As a leader in facilitating large-scale commercial real-estate transactions throughout the Capital Region – which include apartment complexes, industrial retail and office properties, and land/development opportunities – Ross and his team are at the forefront of market-leading real-estate transactions on Vancouver Island.

 

 

Would you like to be featured as part of a future Ten on the 10th Q&A? We'd like to hear from you.

 

I come from humble beginnings being born and raised here in Victoria. Since I was young playing with Lego and drawing floor plans, I’ve always had a profound interest in real estate and community planning. At UVic, I became interested in public administration and geography which lead me to first volunteer on the District of Central Saanich Advisory Planning Commission and then run for a Council seat in 2014. During my second and now third term on Council, I have significantly grown my planning, development and community engagement consulting across the south and mid-island. With my firm, Island View Land Management (IVLM), I’ve had the privilege of working with the some of the best people, consultant teams, builders, clients/partners and investors. I learn from people every day and it is such an honour to be a part of shaping our great Vancouver Island communities.

 

It is a privilege to work with the amazing clients and partners that IVLM has supported. My service profile is adjusted based on the needs of each client. In some cases, I work as a ‘fractional development manager’ where I effectively run a development project from start-to-finish and in others I may do any combination of specific scopes of worth with respect to strategic real estate advisory community planning, public/stakeholder engagement, and/or development consultant.

 

I have worked with local governments, First Nations communities, significant development firms from out of town, institutional clients, local builder-developers and landowners who are new to the development industry and process but are looking to unlock the potential of their property. Regardless of the client, I find that principles of sound planning fundamentals, running a transparent and thoughtful engagement program, ensuring a project is economically resilient, and that plans are enduring in today’s world of rapidly changing markets, social outcomes, and climate change objectives.

 

A significant part of my job is working towards alignment. For land-owner clients, local governments, and the development/construction industry, it can feel like we are in a constant flux and I believe that ensuring that we do our best to align ‘goal-posts between all key stakeholders so that the end-result is a community that exceeds owner, community and investor expectations. I have three key pillars that assist me in creating alignment through the process:

 

Articulate Values - In today’s challenging environment, our clients face tough decisions. Strong leadership, grounded in clear values, allows for informed decision-making that balances practical inputs with long-term objectives. Whether it’s addressing local and regional regulations, establishing project scopes or making course corrections throughout the process, knowing your values gives you clarity when it comes time for “a tough call”.

 

Build Trust - Real estate development involves numerous stakeholders. Establishing clear — whether it’s transparency, sustainability, or innovation — creates trust and fosters collaboration. The ability to clearly share your values is especially important when working with both internal consultants and external regulators to navigate the industries rapidly changing requirements.

 

Long-Term Approach – Our values and trust anchors teams during periods of uncertainty; however, the underlying litmus test needs to be that we ensure that projects are enduring.  When the dust settles and paint dries, we want communities, homes and spaces that enhance the communities where we work and invest for generations to come!

 

Four key areas that I am looking at with clients include:

 

Value-Add Holding Assets – Opportunities to take advantage of the ‘buyer’s market’ on industrial, suburban retail and apartment residential investment properties where there are key opportunities to add value to the current asset with zoning entitlement changes or tenancy enhancements.

 

Policy-Driven Multi-Family Projects – paying attention to incentive programs for part 3 multi-family housing programs supported by the Federal and Provincial Government. These funding models are rapidly changing and evolving and doing a deep dive on alignment with emerging policies within CMHC, National Housing, BC Housing, BC Builds, etc. While I don’t fundamentally think a good business practice is to rely on government assistance, the fact is that financing incentives may be the only way to make certain projects pencil as we try to bridge the headwinds brought on by the soft residential pre-sale market, government fee increases and the impact of the 2025 structural Building Code.

 

Long-Range Groundwork – A slow-down such as the one we are experiencing is an excellent opportunity for land-holders to establish approvals for a more favourable density. The slower market means that planning departments and consultants are less busy than they have been in previous years and coming up with an enduring long-term plan can ensure that your property is ready to develop when (and I mean when) our local market resumes its typical pace.

 

Keeping it Simple – Modest, Part 9 townhouse and cottage-style single family homes are still desirable when you can tailor your offering to primary demographics: downsizers and emerging families. These simple, Part 9 buildings appeal to many clients because they do not require the same equity and/or pre-sale requirements as a larger-scale apartment project and they are attractive to individuals who are buying homes for the “Vancouver Island lifestyle” move.

 

The three aspects where I see opportunities for improvement are:

 

Federally – The federal government’s biggest impact to development is generally on monetary policy. The impact of taxation (through sales, declaring GST, and corporate tax), financing through CMHC specifically and general banking policy and finally via interest rates and the Bank of Canada are all concurrently adding weight to the industry and its ability to deliver.  

Federally and Provincially – Building codes need an overhaul. The structural building code improvements and one-size-fits-all BC adaptability code requirements do not reflect realities.  A prudent federal and provincial government should be looking at these code assumptions and paring things back to basics with respect to safety, affordability and adaptability. This could also include the Provincial government doing an audit of local government building requirements and placing stricter guidance on what they are and are not able to require ‘above and beyond’ the National and Provincial codes.

 

Provincially – The BC Government should be using a carrot and stick approach to infrastructure. Funds for infrastructure should benefit those municipalities that are carrying the brunt of the burden and delivering on housing targets whereas those municipalities sitting back and doing less for the region should be forced to make difficult decisions about raising taxes or reducing services to pay for their lack of housing growth.

 

Locally – I am fortunate that the municipalities that I work in day-to-day seem to be making a concerted effort to modernize their land approvals planning processes. That said there is a lot more work that could be done to improve overall clarity and develop a client-focus within the municipality. Individuals such as my clients are engaged, they are working to align municipal policies and community desires with the need for housing, and what they want are clear answers, clear criteria for successful applications and clear goal posts for delivery.

 

Items that could be done to better improve housing and land-use approval outcomes through every municipality on the South Island. These include:

 

Align Infrastructure Improvements and Development Outcomes -  There needs to be a shared payment approach to infrastructure and amenities. This means developers, local governments and senior governments need to work together to deliver priorities.

Firmly Establish Infrastructure Scopes – Engineering, parks and planning need to firmly determine when the scope of work for redevelopment improvements begins and ends.

 

Establish Clear Goal Posts -  Develop clear guidelines for complete applications, including prequalified consultants and up-to-date zoning and OCP info.

 

Develop Automation and AI - Implement AI for compliance checks and permitting processes.

 

Mandate Process Best Practices - Establish continuous improvement models to monitor and refine permitting processes. 

 

Rethink the Development Fee Program – The introduction of the Amenity Cost Charges (AAC) is an opportunity for municipalities to review their fees and charges, cut out redundancies and ensure they are not over-taxing development. The combination of amenity charges, development cost charges (without results), and permit fees are getting prohibitive to moving projects forward in the current climate.

 

Unfortunately, the BC Government changes to zoning and housing has yet to have a material impact on housing supply on Vancouver Island. This is partially a result of the timing as we have headed into a slower market and slightly self-inflicted as these policies have come into place, local governments have concurrently added additional fees, additional policy hurdles and additional challenges. The harmonization of objectives still needs to happen before meaningful housing can be delivered.

 

The South Island has certainly not been immune to the real estate market challenges that have dragged on investment across major cities in British Columbia and Canada. With all of the doom-and-gloom we hear it is important to remember that Vancouver Island is just that, an island with finite land, outstanding communities and ample desire from across Canada and the world to re-locate. Vancouver Island has always fared reasonably well during historic financial dips (1990s slow-down, 2008, etc.) and I believe that we will be well positioned to come out of this current soft-period stronger than ever.

 

This is a time where I would say that commercial real estate’s ‘stock’ is fairly low and I am reminded of the Warren Buffet quote that you “fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” I am advising a number of individuals who either own properties or are looking at properties in prime locations that now is the time to invest in planning. Begin the process to reimagine your property, go through the community engagement and land-use approvals, and you will look like a genius in two years when demand begins to accumulate while many people sat on the sidelines.

 

The two critical things that the Victoria condo market needs is (1) time and (2) support.

 

Time - The stagnation of the market through reduced demand and an influx of inventory (housing boom over the past number of years, short term rental ban, interest rate raises, immigration policy, etc…) has left a glut of condos on the market. As the world begins to normalize in our ‘post-liberation day’ climate, I am sure the savvy condo purchasers and investors will begin picking off some of these deals on the market and slowly we will re-inter a healthy inventory and the market will again support investment from both the lending communities and pre-sale purchasers.

 

Support – a lot of perspective purchasers I speak to are reluctant to buy due to concerns regarding the current state of safety, security and vitality of the downtown core. I am aware that the Victoria Council is doing a lot at the moment to work within their confines to hold both the Federal and Provincial governments to account in delivering support on the ground for those vulnerable individuals and until those pieces align and individuals feel safe in the City centre, downtown investment (condo, commercial and retail) is going to be a difficult value proposition. My prediction is that -  just like the condo market in general – some interesting things are going to come together in the coming year or two and people will begin reinvesting in the core.

 

Most developers I am speaking with have been including a very healthy hard cost contingency (as much as 25%) on all new construction budgets as a means of heading off the tariff threat.  Many Canadian politicians at the Federal level do not want to acknowledge the fact that you cannot make housing promises without two things: the Private sector and a strong trade partner in the US. Steel, drywall, composite siding, etc. are all so well dominated by US production and we are going to be hamstrung in delivery until these supply chains improve. I understand from speaking to leaders in the Vancouver Island and BC construction industry that there are enormous efforts to either find national alternatives or, more likely, source materials from outside of the US; however the industry is always slow to move and adapt and of course then non-north American materials come with additional labour adoption and code adoption challenges from our friends in the Federal and Provincial government. C

Receive Citified's timely real-estate news straight to your inbox with our newsletter.

• Follow Citified on  X
• Connect with Citified on  Facebook:
   

 Article resources

• Would you like to be featured as part of a future Ten on the 10th Q&A? We'd love to hear from you
• View CBRE Victoria's website here
• To receive exclusive investment opportunities from CBRE’s Investment Properties Group, opt in here
  
  
• 2018
  • October, 2018: Reed Kipp of Devon Properties talks about Victoria's rental housing industry
  • November, 2018: Business Development Bank of Canada's Chris Boissevain talks about interest rates
  • December, 2018: Aryze Development's Luke Mari and Ryan Goodman talk about real-estate development
• 2019
  • February, 2019: Phung Horwood's My Phung talks about real-estate appraisals
  • March, 2019: Luke Mills of Megson Fitzpatrick Insurance talks about the insurance industry
  • April, 2019: Greg Damant of Cascadia Architects talks about architecture in Victoria
  • May, 2019: Real-estate development with Robert Fung of The Salient Group
  • June, 2019: Rental housing industry Q&A with David Hutniak of LandlordBC
  • July 2019: Harris Green redevelopment Q&A with Mark Chemij of Starlight Investments
  • August 2019: Land remediation Q&A with Harm Gross of NEXT Environmental
  • September 2019: Business banking Q&A with Raj Wirk of Coast Capital Savings
  • October, 2019: Real-estate development Q&A with Mike Miller of Abstract Developments
  • November, 2019: Real-estate development Q&A with Byron Chard of Chard Development
  • December, 2019: Interest rate and commercial mortgage brokerage Q&A with Dave Ganong of Canada ICI Capital
• 2020
  • January, 2020: Real-estate development costs Q&A with Doug Foord of Invictus Commercial Investment Corp.
  • February, 2020: Private lending and the mortgage industry Q&A with Len Shorkey of Shorkey Mortgage Corp.
  • March, 2020: Strata insurance premiums Q&A with Luke Mills of Megson FitzPatrick Insurance
  • April, 2020: Rental housing and COVID-19 Q&A with David Hutniak of LandlordBC
  • June, 2020: COVID-19's impact on Victoria's real-estate Q&A with Jordan Milne of GMC Projects
  • July, 2020: Multi-unit residential and commercial building fire safety services Q&A with Tim Lindsay of the Vancouver Island Fire Protection Association
  • August, 2020: Royal Beach Q&A with Georgia Desjardins of Seacliff Properties, developer of the 134-acre Colwood project
  • September, 2020: Victoria real-estate development Q&A with Sam Ganong of Curate Developments
  • October, 2020: Real-estate development Q&A with developer Dan Cox of Cox Developments
  • November, 2020: CRD affordable housing and CRD parks services Q&A with Stephen Henderson of the CRD
  • December, 2020: Real-estate values, wine and housing market Q&A with Johnathon Sipos of Cielo Properties
• 2021
  • January, 2021: Mass timber construction, the Mayfair District and junior hockey Q&A with Edward Geric of Mike Geric Construction
  • February, 2021: Excavating industry, sewage treatment pipe and COVID economy Q&A with Trevor Mann of Don Mann Excavating
  • March, 2021: Victoria industrial sector investment opportunities Q&A with Brent Sawchyn of PC Urban Properties
  • April, 2021: Northern Junk, Capital Iron lands and Victoria real-estate development Q&A with Jon Stovell of Reliance Properties
  • May, 2021: Victoria housing delivery and affordability Q&A with Adam Cooper of Abstract Developments
  • June, 2021: Institutional investment in Victoria's rental housing market Q&A with Alex Messina of Nicola Wealth
  • October, 2021: Mortgage products, interest rates and inflation Q&A with Gagan Lalli of CMLS Financial
  • November, 2021: Future of Tillicum Centre, real-estate trends, and industry outlook with Jordan Carlson of Anthem Properties
  • December, 2021: Commercial real-estate market recap and a look to the future with Jason Kiselbach of CBRE Vancouver
• 2022
  • February, 2022: Downtown Victoria's largest rental development, and more, with Andrew Browne of Starlight Developments
  • March, 2022: Alberta developer shifting gears to build in Victoria, with Namrita Rattan of Aquila Pacific
  • April, 2022: Post-COVID Victoria office market and development outlook, with Robert Jawl of Jawl Properties
  • May, 2022: Residential housing market and supply, with Island Realm Real Estate's Tony Zarsadias
  • June, 2022: Meeting community and municipal expectations of new housing with Chris Bradley of TLA Developments
  • July, 2022: Changing mortgage rates and the 2022 lending environment with Peter Fast of ICI Capital
  • August, 2022: Victoria's changing rental housing market with Renee St. Germaine of Devon Properties
  • September, 2022: Delivering 'missing middle' housing to Victoria's West Shore with Kyle Ryan of Formwell Homes
  • October, 2022: Lending for developers and businesses in current economic times with Glen Welin of Roynat Capital
  • November, 2022: Real-estate development in Greater Victoria with Denciti's David A. Fawley
  • December, 2022: Victoria real-estate market recap and 2023 insights with Jason Kiselbach and Paul Morassutti of CBRE
• 2023
  • January, 2023: 'Parking-free' missing middle housing development in Victoria with Julian West of Urban Thrive
  • February, 2023: Victoria's 2023 market outlook and success in the real-estate industry with Ross Marshall of CBRE
  • April, 2023: Citified's Mike Kozakowski on BC's new housing policies and overcoming supply roadblocks
  • May, 2023: Royal Beach's Georgia Desjardins on the project's future homes, parks, a ferry to Victoria, and more
  • July, 2023: Victoria's housing market history and an outlook with Deane Strongitharm of CitySpaces Consulting
  • August, 2023: 'Missing middle' housing, clean streets and the City of Victoria's future with councillor Matt Dell
  • September, 2023: GMC Projects' CEO Jordan Milne discusses Victoria's housing prices and the Capital's rental market
  • October, 2023: Astria Properties' David Basche chats light industrial development in Victoria, and the R-E market
  • November, 2023: Government policies impacting Victoria's housing supply with Casey Edge of Victoria Residential Builder Assoc.
• 2024
  • January, 2024: Provincial housing measures and their impacts with Langford-JDF MLA Ravi Parmar
  • February, 2024: Real-estate appraisals with Scott Humphreys of D.R. Coell & Associates
  • May, 2024: Downtown Victoria street issues, crime and disorder with Councillor Stephen Hammond
  • June, 2024: Interest rates, lending opportunities and what's in-store for borrowers with Impact Commercial's Alan Haigh
  • August, 2024: Abstract Developments' Adam Cooper talks housing market, missing middle homes and build code changes
  • October, 2024: Matthew Davis of PCRE talks future of Colwood's mega-project Royal Bay with market insights
  • November, 2024: Ovis Group's Sébastien Leboeuf discusses the company's projects in Victoria, and its rise to big-time development
• 2025
  • January, 2025: Saanich Mayor Dean Murdock hints at new ice rink, faster housing approvals, speaks to shelter services
  • March, 2025: Edward Geric of Mike Geric Construction chats tariffs and housing starts in the Capital
  • May, 2025: Claire Flewelling-Wyatt of Pemberton Holmes discusses Greater Victoria's rental industry

Q&A and insights on Victoria's rental industry with Claire Flewelling-Wyatt of Pemberton Holmes