UDI Webinar: Office Landscape in Metro Vancouver: Adapting to New Realities

It is clear that the economic and social disruptions caused by the COVID19 pandemic has led to major shifts in office development and employment patterns. Housing affordability, tenant demands, employee patterns, and community amenities are just a few aspects that have contributed to the changes we are seeing in the office market. 

We are pleased to have Dr. David Williams, Vice President, Policy, Business Council of B.C. and Eric Aderneck, RPP, MPL, BCOM, DULE, Senior Planner, Metro Vancouver, join us to present their findings on the evolving landscape of office usage and employment in Metro Vancouver and the impacts this will have on policy, development, and planning.

Our expert moderator, Wendy Waters, Vice President, Research & Strategy, GWL Realty Advisors, will guide us through key topics including:

- Findings from the B.C. Business Council Report: Canada and B.C Are Losing Head Office and Staff - Policy Perspectives
- Findings from the Metro Vancouver Report: Office Building Inventory Report 2022;  Executive Summary
- Policies to encourage office development - what is working, what is not, and what policies governments need to consider
- Land use planning for mixed-use development and standalone office buildings
- Office demand in urban centres, suburban locations, and transit-oriented development areas
- Office tenants and employee trends, and work at home/return to work patterns  

Please join us for this session from the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), q̓íc̓əy̓ (Katzie), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), Qayqayt, Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and Tsawwassen peoples. 
 
 
Panelists:  

Dr. David Williams, Vice President, Policy, Business Council of BC

David Williams is Vice President of Policy at the Business Council of British Columbia. He leads the development of research and advice to government on economic policy, productivity, investment, innovation, taxation and human capital.

David joined the Council in 2018 after six years as Senior Economist at the Bank of Canada. Prior to immigrating to Canada, he spent nine years in increasingly senior roles in the Australian public service. He was Senior Adviser for Economic Policy at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet before taking leave to pursue postgraduate studies at Oxford University. While at Oxford, David was a lecturer in economics and a PhD research intern at the International Monetary Fund in Washington D.C.

He is President of the Association of Professional Economists of B.C., an organization representing around one hundred of the province's top economists, and a member of the adjudication committee for the Canadian Economic Association's Mike McCracken Award for Economic Statistics.

David holds a Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Philosophy in economics from Oxford University.
 

Eric Aderneck, RPP, MPL, BCOM, DULE, Senior Planner - Metro Vancouver

Eric Aderneck is a Registered Professional Planner. Over the past two decades, his diverse experience includes working for the public and private sectors in the Metro Vancouver region through a number of different capacities including planning policy, real estate development, consultant, and instructor.

Well-versed with industrial, employment, and economic issues in the Metro Vancouver region and British Columbia, having led the industrial lands portfolio at Metro Vancouver Regional Government, completed industrial lands inventories, written a number of leading publications on the topic of industrial lands utilization and intensification, as well as office development patterns, and associated trends and implications. 

Completed work for various projects that entailed comprehensive reviews of industrial lands best practices and case studies from international, North American, and Metro Vancouver regions, consideration of economic and market as well as regulatory issues that impact industrial development patterns and intensification potential, and operating within a context of constrained land supply experiencing strong growth in demand. 

He teaches urban planning and land development courses at various institutions, including - Learn the Basics of Urban Planning : One-Day Live Online Class, www.LearnPlanning.ca 

Formal education includes: a Master of Urban & Regional Planning Degree from Queen's University, a Bachelor of Commerce Degree from the University of Victoria, an Urban Land Economics Diploma from the University of British Columbia, and Project Management and Construction & Development Certificates from Langara College. 
 

Wendy Waters, Vice President, Research & Strategy, GWL Realty Advisors

Wendy Waters is a real estate professional with over 20 years of experience, 17 of them with GWL Realty Advisors (GWLRA) where she leads the company's Research Services and Strategy team.   

GWLRA (a wholly owned subsidiary of Canada Life), manages the real estate investments of pension fund and institutional clients via direct investments as well as through its open-ended segregated funds.  The GWLRA Research Services & Strategy team provides strategic analysis to support and grow the $17 Billion in real estate under management in the office, industrial, retail and multi-residential rental asset classes.  This work entails tracking the economic, demographic and social drivers of real estate performance as well as the capital flow and market trends that shape returns, including the regional policy shifts that can influence development and investment viability.  The Research Team also provides research and analysis to support new developments. In the Vancouver area, these developments have included the award-winning Vancouver Centre II office building as well as two new rental housing projects.  

Wendy regularly publishes research at gwlra.com/research and shares insights on panels and as a keynote speaker in Vancouver and across Canada. Wendy has a Ph.D. in world economic history and lives in East Vancouver with her husband and two teenaged children.