Federal election rivals square off on housing affordability
Pair debate whether market-rate housing will ease or inflame affordability crisis
Vancouver took a big stride last week toward its 2019 target for approving construction of rental homes — after reaching barely half of last year’s goal. But the latest council vote included some unusual drama as federal election rivals squared off on opposite sides.
Don Davies, NDP MP for Vancouver Kingsway, spoke at a council public hearing last week to oppose rezoning for a seven-storey building project with ground-floor commercial space and 121 housing units to be rented at market rates.
“I’m in favour of all modalities of rental, including market. But when you have exclusively market, and there’s not a unit of affordable housing, then darn right I’m going to object to that,” Davies said this week in explaining his first appearance at a city hall hearing in his decade-plus as MP.
City hall watchers said it was unusual for an MP to come to council to oppose a specific project. Others were unhappy a federal politician spoke against market rental homes in his riding when the city’s vacancy rate has been around or below a critically low one per cent for years. The project before council, planned for Fraser Street near East 22nd Avenue, is in a neighbourhood where the vacancy rate is just 0.5 per cent.
Kevin Quinlan, the chief of staff for former mayor Gregor Robertson, wrote on Twitter that Davies “never came to public hearings to oppose the 5/6 storey condo buildings that have gone up on Fraser Street over last decade.”
Alex Hemingway, an economist with the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, tweeted that it was “pretty awful to sit through a parade of my neighbours, including my MP, advocating against 121 desperately needed rental homes.”
“It’s a big mistake to pin your strategy for building low-income housing on blocking middle-income housing, especially rental housing,” Hemingway said by phone. “That doesn’t make sense.”
The appearance by Davies also displeased his Liberal opponent in the fall election, former CTV anchor Tamara Taggart. So Taggart signed up to speak at the public hearing’s second night.
Taggart said by phone that she was “shocked” the local MP spoke against the rental project, “so I just wanted to add my voice in support.”
In her remarks to council last week, Taggart said: “To turn away 121 possible units, to me is hard to wrap my head around, because there’s so many people who need a place to live.”
Davies told council that, among other reasons, he objected to the project was because it was too tall and not affordable enough.
The building’s starting rents are expected to be $1,500 a month for a studio unit, $2,600 for a two-bedroom and $3,300 for a three-bedroom.
But, Taggart said, there are many Vancouverites with good-paying jobs, like teachers and small business owners, who couldn’t buy a home in that neighbourhood, but could afford those rents. The project was approved, with councillors Adriane Carr, Jean Swanson and Colleen Hardwick opposed.
Considering that this council had, between its inauguration in November and the end of last month, approved 312 purpose-built market rental units and 233 social housing units, these 121 units represent a big step — almost a third of all purpose-built rentals it has approved. But they’re well behind this year’s target of 2,000 rental approvals.
Many people were watching the decision closely because it came on the heels of council’s rejection last month of a rental project proposed for Shaughnessy — the only residential proposal rejected by this council after being recommended by city staff.
That townhouse proposal was the subject of a highly emotional debate. Part of that was because of its location next to a hospice, but one often-cited objection was that rents would be too expensive for the 21 proposed townhouses.
After the rental proposal’s rejection, the landowners said they would build a single mansion on the property, as allowed under current zoning.
In explaining his vote on last week’s Fraser Street rezoning, Mayor Kennedy Stewart told council he was imagining what would happen if the proposal was rejected. The landowner, Stewart said, would probably build duplexes, as allowed under the existing zoning, that would sell for about $1.5 million each. They would be affordable only on a household income of $135,000 a year or higher, after a $300,000 down payment.
“I’m a renter. And as your mayor, I could not afford that,” Stewart said. “So, the mayor of Vancouver could not afford the alternative to what’s being proposed here. Which, I think, is kind of insane.”
Stewart and Davies, former colleagues in the federal NDP caucus, are both vocal about wanting to dramatically increase Vancouver’s supply of affordable housing for low-income people. But they found themselves at odds on last week’s rental proposal.
The homes in the proposed Fraser Street building would be affordable for teachers, nurses, cops, firefighters and tradespeople, Stewart said, adding: “Those are the kind of people that make great neighbours.”