Category — Housing

With city finance officials already beginning the 2011 budget preparations, these end-of-June building permit stats will be good news: residential construction has nearly doubled this year over the same period last year to $437 million.

A new category this year is laneway housing. Eighty have been issued permits, 17 in the last month alone.  Total value of that construction is $7.7 million.

60 Richmond St. E., an 84-unit co-op created as part of the Regent Park redevelopment, includes a partnership with the Toronto hospitality workers' union.

Today’s Globe and Mail features the bold transformation taking place in Toronto’s Regent Park, a downtown postwar public housing project that got everything wrong about urban renewal.

The first phase (of six) of this massive redevelopment is nearing completion, putting the city on track to replace more than 2,000 low-cost housing units without tenant dislocation.

The city is partnering with private sector developers to create a new mixed-use community, including market condominiums. Funds generated by the project are being invested in new housing both on the site and elsewhere. There is much here that could be applied to projects like Vancouver’s Little Mountain.

What the article missed was the novel approach to generating new, affordable housing for vital city workers in the hospitality industry who could never afford a condominium purchase, union wages notwithstanding.

When this concept was proposed for Vancouver’s market rental units at the Olympic Village, it confounded many Vancouver commentators, although it is commonplace at sophisticated cities around the world — and even in Whistler.

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It was standing room only — more than 200 residents by my count — in the Empire Landmark ballroom on Robson last night to hear city staff walk through the facts about Vancouver’s rental housing crisis and the reasons for the Short Term Incentives for Rental program that is a key part of a proposed new rental tower at 1401 Comox.

While a new high rise rental tower might not seem out of character in the West End, that’s not how many residents see it. A major campaign has unfolded under the direction of a new organization called West End Neighbours to impose a moratorium on development until a new community plan is in place.

The issue was aptly summarized earlier this week on CTV by reporter David Kincaid.

After hearing the residents last night, and visiting the site with some of those who have gathered 4,700 signatures on a petition against the project at 1401 Comox, I became even more convinced that the issue is much more about development in general than it is about the STIR program.

By contrast, next week’s council meeting will consider another STIR project at 1142 Granville St. that will produce more than 100 new rental units if approved at public hearing. A mailing of 3,000 advisory letters produced a total of four replies on both sides of the question.

Council’s midnight decision last Thursday to inject a further $32 million into social housing at the Olympic Village was one of the most difficult Gregor Robertson’s Vision team has confronted. I summarized the reasons why we did what we did here in this morning’s Province.

This should be last major financial decision arising from the NPA’s colossal mismanagement of the Olympic Village file. Almost a year ago, council approved a proposal to step into the village’s financing, moving out a New York hedge fund and saving taxpayers as much as $90 million. In about 60 days, the market units will go on sale. If all goes well, the city’s financial investment will be repaid.