Former B.C. premier Mike Harcourt now a developer of missing middle housing

Former B.C. premier Mike Harcourt and his family are developing a six-unit multifamily project at 4987 Connaught Dr. in Vancouver under the new R1-1 multiplex zoning. The project targets downsizers and aging-in-place buyers, with unit sizes of 2,113 to 2,364 square feet and prices estimated at $1,600 to $1,800 per square foot. The article underscores the policy shift toward gentle density and multiplex conversion, but it is primarily a profile rather than market-moving news.

Analysis

This is a micro-signal for a macro theme: the economics of urban land are starting to overwhelm the old single-use zoning model, and the first beneficiaries are not the tower developers but the small-cap, design-heavy infill operators that can monetize scarcity with less political friction. The key second-order effect is that “missing middle” product should compress the spread between land value and buildable density on premium lots, which is constructive for local brokers, mortgage originators, and select builders, but it also raises the bar for architectural execution and balance-sheet discipline.

For Colliers, the direct earnings impact is negligible, but the narrative is useful: senior leadership is effectively validating multiplex and aging-in-place demand, which can support higher advisory mandates in rezonings, land assemblies, and private-capital development work. The more important competitive dynamic is that family offices and owner-occupiers may increasingly self-develop instead of selling to institutional capital, reducing available stock for conventional developers and tightening inventory in affluent neighborhoods over the next 12-24 months.

The contrarian read is that policy change alone does not guarantee volumetric supply; in high-end submarkets, the constraint is now often construction cost, design complexity, and approval optionality, not zoning. That means the first wave of multiplex adoption may be margin-accretive for scarce capable operators, while broader affordability effects remain delayed and modest. Tail risk is a pullback in west-side land values or a rise in carrying/construction costs, which would quickly kill the spread economics of six-unit projects versus simple duplexes.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Buy CIGI on weakness for a 6-12 month hold: this is a sentiment-positive policy tailwind for Canadian land-use advisory and private-capital brokerage, with limited fundamental risk but optionality if rezonings and infill transactions accelerate.
• Pair trade: long CIGI / short a pure-play homebuilder or land-trader with high sensitivity to premium single-family lot turnover over the next 6-9 months; the thesis is advisory fee resilience versus valuation risk in land-dependent inventory.
• Initiate a small basket long in Canadian mortgage/real-estate service names exposed to Vancouver infill activity for 12 months; use tight stops because the volume uplift is likely gradual, not immediate.
• Avoid chasing broad homebuilder exposure on this story alone; the upside is more likely to accrue to niche execution specialists than to scaled volume builders over the next 4 quarters.