Housing affordability dilemma looms as top issue, writes Barbara Yaffe.
Politics: Robertson and LaPointe off er diff erent solutions to one big problem
Vancouver’s two lead contenders for the mayor’s job live in the western part of the city. Gregor Robertson recently bought a house in Kits, as well as renting a West End condo. Kirk LaPointe has a townhouse on leasehold property in the UBC Endowment Lands.
Although affordability has not stopped either candidate from buying, Vancouver’s high- cost housing remains an enormous challenge for both.
That is because they must pitch policies that will resonate with the voters in this city who are fed up with local real estate prices and rent levels. Median family incomes in Vancouver are below the Canadian average, at about $ 71,000.
Not surprisingly, a poll last March by Insights West found the issue of Vancouver’s housing affordability was the No. 1 problem for most respondents.
Some in the development community are calling for bold ideas to bring real estate prices more in line with what locals can afford.
Among their suggestions: Rezoning to allow single- family lots to be subdivided into more compact, and thus affordable, parcels, with town or coach houses constructed on the smaller lots, and building more lower- cost lowrise condo and apartment buildings, as well as townhomes, along arterial roads. To date, the building of tall new glass condo towers has increased density, but not affordability.
“There is no easy solution,” Robertson said, noting his council has achieved a lot, and it has — in the areas of rental accommodation and homelessness.
The Vision Vancouver mayor announced measures on Wednesday aimed at making life more affordable for families, promising to require 35 per cent of any new housing development to be “family housing.”
He said the Non- Partisan Association is offering no support for “working families.”
The Vision website says Robertson and his team have made it easier for homeowners to add secondary suites and laneway houses as rental properties. Up to three residences — two being rentals — can now occupy a lot.
Under Vision’s governance, the first new co- op housing in many years was built at the Olympic Village, and the first new West End rental tower, at 1401 Comox St.
Robertson also points to 1,100 new rental housing units built in 2013. On Wednesday, he promised another 4,000 rental units over the next four years.
Last July, Robertson announced an Affordable Housing Agency, tasked with working with private- sector and non- profit organizations to build affordable housing on city lands — 500 houses by 2017, 2,000 more by 2021.
LaPointe, however, asserted that this agency lacks accountability. “There needs to be a stronger linkage between this agency and the elected politicians,” he said.
Preparing to announce the NPA’s housing policy next week, LaPointe criticized Robertson for “overpromising and underdelivering” on homelessness.
“We need to look for larger solutions — ones that address not just their own lack of shelter but their own lack of economic opportunity.”
More broadly, LaPointe wants more and better- paying jobs in the city, pledging the appointment of a mayor’s council to lure new businesses and head offices, with the promise of special city hall “service agreements” to guarantee a quick turnaround on development and other permitting proposals.
Rather than offering specific promises, LaPointe said he is laying down principles — transparency and consultation — that, under his watch, would guide housing policy.
He would launch “one of the great discussions in the city’s history around a revitalized city plan,” he said, and plans for neighbourhood development. The balance of power, he said, would shift to the people of Vancouver.
“The autocratic approach to how you are going to develop Vancouver is going to be stopped, right in its tracks,” LaPointe said.
Another change, LaPointe said, would be his plan to closely liaise with other levels of government that have the lion’s share of dollars the city needs to finance infrastructure and social housing.
“The current mayor has isolated himself by being hostile to the other levels of government,” he said.
As a result, he argued, Vancouver has been unable to secure the funds it needs for transit initiatives. LaPointe is not satisfied with a 10- year plan for transit developed earlier this year by the region’s mayors because it fails to adequately address the city’s transit needs.
The NPA’s top priorities would be seniors’ housing, housing for families and first- time buyers.
Community Amenity Contributions, paid to the city by developers for such things as parks and daycares, would be negotiated in public under his watch, instead of privately, he said.
As for a vacant- house tax, LaPointe said he has yet to meet a lawyer in the city who believes it would be enforceable.
The NPA candidate is unprepared to promise the eradication of homelessness. His first order of business in that regard would be to order an audit on the Downtown Eastside to determine why there are so many homeless and destitute people there when $ 360 million a year is being spent on services for them.