Category — Housing

Vancouver’s future economic success hinges as much on increasing the supply of affordable housing as it does on competitive taxes, the executive director of the Vancouver Economic Development Commission told council Tuesday.

It could also be more critical than a “rendering farm,” the massive computer hardware installation that makes data-heavy industries like digital special effects firms happy to be here. (The VEDC is working on one of those as well.)

Lee Malleau, who was unveiling the VEDC’s Economic Action Strategy, said Vancouver is emerging as a key hub of the video and digital special effects sector, along with Los Angeles and London. But unlike those two cities, Vancouver lacks reasonably-priced housing.

Creating that housing will be essential, Malleau said, if the city is to continue to attract international talent, whose wages will go much further in cities with cheaper homes.

Ever since Vancouver’s low barrier shelters opened in the wake of Gregor Robertson’s 2008 election victory, the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association has carefully monitored aggressive panhandling, open drug use and numbers of street homeless in its 96-block district.

The latest summary, circulated last week by the BIA’s Charles Gauthier, shows that the benefits continue for downtown businesses, with incidents of street disorder trending down as shelters open.

Mayor Gregor Robertson’s push to tackle the problem of housing affordability, a key plank in his victorious re-election campaign, is stirring strong reactions in the construction and development industries, which naturally believe the city itself is mostly to blame for the problem.

Two commentators pursue this argument in today’s real estate section of the Vancouver Sun, where columnist Bob Ransford points to “hidden taxes” in the form of community amenity charges as a key cost driver. But when the public creates value in the form of a rezoning, shouldn’t the public get most of the benefit? [Read more →]

Just as the civic election campaign was reaching peak intensity on Nov. 5, World Planning Day, the Planning Institute of BC made former union activist, social housing developer and city councillor Jim Green an honorary member, someone who “shaped the city.”

Former city planner Nathan Edelson did a remarkable job of summarizing Jim’s planning career, one of several major careers he’s had so far, for the audience at the award ceremony. To his credit, Edelson reported the controversies as well as the achievements. His conclusion:

“In my view and that of so many others in the Downtown Eastside, throughout the city of Vancouver and indeed across Canada, Jim Green is seen as an incredible community builder who makes efforts – sometimes extraordinary efforts as with the Woodward public process – to engage local residents in decision making, but who at the end of the day gives  priority to concrete results.”

Read the full text of Edelson’s tribute here.