ABC focused on biggest number of "net new" homes, regardless of type. Green councillors lamented putting market condos on the same footing as below-market rentals and social housing.
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Heated debate broke out in Vancouver council chambers Tuesday as the majority ABC council changed housing priorities recommended by staff, effectively bumping up the importance of market condos.
City planning department staff, saying they were “overloaded” with more rezoning applications than they could handle, had asked council to set priorities to clear the backlog. Staff recommended putting the highest priority on applications for social and supportive housing, co-ops, and rental projects with at least 20 per cent below-market units and up to 80 per cent market rentals.
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Instead ABC councillors decided to give top priority to “the delivery of the greatest amount of net new housing units across the entire housing continuum, for all housing types and tenures.”
The move was criticized as regressive by the two Green councillors, who supported giving priority to rental and non-market housing, which they said was most urgently needed.
ABC councillors argued their decision does not “de-prioritize” non-market housing, but instead addresses the need for more housing of all types, including market rentals and condos.
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But, the Greens argued, if you prioritize everything, you are effectively not prioritizing anything.
Green Coun. Adriane Carr accused ABC of “going backwards.”
Carr, council’s most experienced member, said that when she was first elected in 2011, “everything was condos.”
In the middle part of the 20th century, Vancouver (and other Canadian cities) built huge amounts of rental housing, but that changed significantly by the 1990s and early 2000s, when condo construction was booming in Vancouver and few apartments were added. In 2008 and 2009, Vancouver approved exactly zero purpose-built rental homes.
Many experts point to those decades of relatively little rental construction as a major cause of the rental housing crisis of today.
Over Vision Vancouver’s three council majorities from 2008 to 2018, the city implemented policies to persuade the private sector to build more rental housing. The 10-year strategy Housing Vancouver approved in 2017 emphasized a shift toward “the right supply,” meaning fewer expensive condos and houses and more affordable and rental homes. The city planning department says its numbers show that shift from strata to rental has continued in recent years.
In council Tuesday, Carr accused ABC of “going backwards 10, 12 years by passing these amendments.”
“I’m sorry, don’t try and mince words or make it sound OK with what you’re suggesting,” she said. “You’re suggesting rolling back measures that we have actually developed in this city to try and shift the market to deliver more rental, more housing that is affordable.”
ABC Coun. Peter Meiszner, who introduced the amendment under debate, said: “There’s some hysterics in the chamber today about us trying to do the right thing here on the housing file.”
“This is about increasing the overall supply,” Meiszner said. “We need to free up housing supply across the spectrum by bringing in a variety of new housing units. … This is the bold strong action that Vancouverites are expecting us to take.”
The staff report says city hall’s rezoning department is currently processing about 120 rezoning inquiries and 100 rezoning applications, roughly double the normal workload.
City staff believe this does not represent a trend, but rather a “temporary spike” resulting from market conditions and the previous council’s approval of the Broadway plan last term. That’s a major land use plan for roughly 500 city blocks, which prioritized adding more rental and below-market housing and job space to the area with comparatively less focus on condos and houses.
Collectively, the backlog of applications and inquiries represents more than 35,000 homes and 8.7 million square feet of job space, the city staff report says. About 65 per cent of these homes (23,130 units) are market rentals, the staff report says, 12 per cent (4,125 units) are below-market rentals, and another 10 per cent (3,671 homes) are social housing units. About 13 per cent (4,761 homes) are strata units.
Other ABC councillors emphasized their goal was building more housing of all kinds more quickly, regardless of housing type or tenure, and so the focus on the number of “net new” units.
City staff’s proposal also prioritized projects that minimize tenant displacement, and ABC councillors emphasized the importance of this point. Meiszner gave the example of giving priority to a new project replacing a parking lot instead of a redevelopment of an existing apartment building.
Meiszner also mentioned that many condo units end up becoming rental homes when their owners rent them out. The Greens countered those investor-owned secondary rentals provide less security of tenure for tenants than purpose-built rentals.
ABC Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung said council was not considering fundamentally changing the city’s long-term housing strategy, but merely giving direction on a “short-term” priority for clearing the rezoning backlog, which staff indicated could be done by the end of this year.
She said this amendment does not mean the city would stop trying to produce affordable housing, but would try to produce more market-rate housing as well.
“This is not an ‘either-or.’ This is an ‘and,'” she said. “People need choices.”
Green Coun. Pete Fry expressed frustration that such a significant amendment was introduced on the floor with no chance for non-ABC councillors to review it ahead of time. Fry asked Vancouver’s director of planning, Theresa O’Donnell, to clarify what ABC’s amendment would mean.
“There would not be a priority on below-market,” O’Donnell replied. “The priority would be on the greatest amount of net new. Whether that’s social housing, whether that’s below-market, whether that’s strata — the projects with the greatest net new housing.”
Later, ABC Coun. Lenny Zhou asked O’Donnell to clarify: “As long as we deliver the greatest number of housing units, it doesn’t mean we de-prioritize affordable housing?”
O’Donnell replied: “Not necessarily.”
The city’s communications department said they could not immediately confirm whether this new direction from council would mean a 200-unit high-end condo development receives higher priority than a 190-unit fully funded social housing building, assuming neither proposal resulted in any displacement of existing tenants. But it sounds like that’s what it would mean.
That would represent a shift in priority from the “right supply” envisioned in the 2017 Housing Vancouver strategy Vision approved, and from the Broadway plan approved by the last council, and the framework proposed by the city planning department this month.
The amendment passed with both Greens in opposition and all ABC members in support. The only OneCity councillor was absent.
In a press release following the decision, Meiszner said: “With today’s actions, we are sending a clear message that the delivery of more housing units is the priority.”
ABC Vancouver has emphasized the importance of building more homes faster. There will be more opportunities this term for council to show which kinds of homes they want most.
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