Groundshare in British Columbia

Measured from BC's own rolls

Four cities, parcel by parcel.

BC is the only province where we could measure whole cities and audit the measurements. City open-data portals republish BC Assessment's per-parcel land and improvement values; we aggregated every parcel:

And we attacked our own numbers: in ~500-metre grid cells across all 101,488 Surrey standard lots, built parcels' land allocations sit within ~11% of what same-sized vacant lots are assessed at. The three-quarters figure isn't an artifact — it's what BC ground is worth. (the audit)

What it means at your address

Who receives, who pays.

Under the national design — every Canadian's equal share, ≈$9,000 a year — the incidence inside BC follows the ground, not the postal code's reputation:

The BC renterreceives in full Four full shares for a renting family of four — ≈$36,100/yr. The average Canadian renting household nets ≈$21,400; BC's renters, facing the country's highest ground costs, are the design's clearest case.

The condo majoritymostly receives Vancouver strata land shares are high (76%) but per-unit land values are modest — most condo households sit below the ≈$456k household crossover and collect.

Median Vancouver detachedpays ≈ $49k/yr ≈$1.45M of land at the measured 85% single-family share. This page says it plainly rather than being told it: the paying class in BC is detached land in the scarcity belt, plus entities.

Hinterland BCstrongly receives Prince George holds $153k of residential value per resident; Fraser Lake $75k. Most of BC's map — as land, not people — is on the receiving side.

The honest ledger

BC pays in. Here's the whole picture.

In aggregate, at the measured land shares, 81 of BC's 159 municipalities — holding 90% of its municipal population — sit above the national break-even line as communities. Under a national pool, BC's scarcity-priced ground funds settlements everywhere. Two things keep that honest rather than fatal:

Municipality	Residential value / resident
Whistler	$1,618,700
West Vancouver	$1,337,500
Vancouver	$507,400
Surrey	$312,600
Victoria	$305,400
Kamloops	$220,000
Prince George	$153,200
Fraser Lake	$74,700

Schedule 707, 2025 roll — the full 159-municipality ranking is in the research.

Communities are not households. "Vancouver pays" describes the city's aggregate holdings — landlord, investor, and corporate land included. The renter and the condo owner inside Vancouver still receive individually. And a BC-only pool wouldn't dissolve the tension: the 22× spread means a provincial pool just relocates the same question — Whistler and West Vancouver become the new "Vancouver," Fraser Lake the new "Saskatoon." There is no container without an internal gradient.

For scale: if BC pooled only its own residential ground, the share works out to roughly $260–290k per municipal resident ($372,800 × the measured 69–78% land shares) — a flow of ≈$14–16k/yr at 5.5%, before any commercial or industrial ground is added. Bigger cheques, smaller circle of solidarity — that trade is the container question, and it stays open on the decision desk rather than being settled by this page.

Why BC anyway

Groundshare's machinery was half-built here.

BC publishes the number that matters. The only province where per-parcel land values sit on notices and in open city datasets — Vancouver, Surrey, Victoria, and Langley Township republish whole rolls. That transparency is why this page can exist.
Deferral was invented here. BC has let seniors defer property taxes against their home since 1974 — the exact machinery that answers "what about grandma" is boring, tested BC administration.
BC already ran the natural experiments. The Speculation and Vacancy Tax and Vancouver's Empty Homes Tax are working land-holding charges with published evaluations — including vacant units converting to rental housing, the behavioural response Groundshare's no-distortion argument predicts.
The audit ran on BC data and passed. When we tested whether assessed land values track real vacant-land prices, BC's own rolls supplied the test — and cleared it.

The BC ask, before any settlement: BC Assessment already computes and licenses the full-province per-parcel split — it should publish its annual roll extract as open data. Four of its own municipalities prove the sky doesn't fall. Zero fiscal cost; pure transparency; its own justification with or without Groundshare.

Groundshare in British Columbia — a provincial cut of a proposal in open development. Sources: BC Ministry of Municipal Affairs Schedule 707 (2025 roll); city open-data rolls (Vancouver, Surrey, Victoria, Langley Township, 2026); StatCan-derived national figures per the research library. Aggregate community positions are not household incidence; the difference is stated wherever the numbers appear. Corrections are published, not erased.