Category — Housing

News that Credit Suisse proposes to build a 400,000 square foot LEED platinum double office tower at the site of the old Vancouver Stock Exchange should convince sceptics that Vancouver’s commitment to “green jobs” is producing results.

The Stock Exchange project is just one of a new wave of construction of office and job space projects in the Downtown Core that will exceed two million feet very quickly.

The announcement should raise confidence about four key council policies:

• the decision several years ago to impose a moratorium on condo construction in a key section of the downtown core so there would be room for the jobs needed to make the city economy tick;
• the decision to adopt other jobs-friendly land use policies of the Core Jobs Review;
• the requirement for green building construction at LEED gold levels, which this project will exceed; and
• Mayor Gregor Robertson’s drive to commit the city to “green jobs” as a strategy to move Vancouver forward.

The result is a rash of office construction exceeding two million square feet that is riding these policies as well as the wave built up by the city’s very competitive tax structure, rapid transit and our general economic stability.

The only cloud on the horizon? Housing prices, which more and more employers are learning can be a deal-breaker even when recruiting high priced help that can work anywhere but earn much more where housing costs are lower.

The province’s sudden injection of $6 million in new funding to support developmentally disabled adults won’t alter the heart-breaking decisions facing many families as Community Living BC continues to close group homes in search of financial savings.

This policy, which transfers clients to “shared living” arrangements akin to foster care, has seen developmentally disabled adults bounced from one home to another or even into acute care hospital after years of stabled, supported living in group home settings.

The Community Living Action Group, a broad-based coalition of organizations seeking full funding for CLBC, estimates the actual need is closer to $70 million.

A motion Councillor Kerry Jang and I are taking to next week’s council calls for a moratorium on the group home closures and calls on the city to take steps to do what it can to help affected families. One solution: creation of supported housing in Vancouver where parents and children of such families could live together.

So far, however, Victoria has not agreed to fund clients who live in such settings, even if parents are able to create them. Money is available, however, for “shared living.”

The end of the existing federal mortage subsidy program in 2020 could trigger the loss of thousands of affordable housing units in the City of Vancouver, according to the Co-op Housing Federation.

Replacing that mortgage subsidy is one of the many goals of the city’s new Housing and Homeless Action Plan, which council approved today after hearing from a long list of housing advocates.

(A comprehensive library of documents on this groundbreaking plan can be found here.)

CHF president Thom Armstrong told council that the end of the federal subsidy  underlines the importance of protecting existing affordable housing units, not just seeking to build more.

Vancouver benefits from 5,600 co-op housing units, Armstrong said, of which 40 to 50 percent are on a subsidy that gears rent to income. That benefit flows from subsidized CMHC mortages that run out in 2020.

The same blow will fall on thousands more of units in other housing complexes owned by non-profit housing societies.

In a council agenda packed with significant items, the proposed 10-year Housing and Homelessness Strategy may be the most significant: a goal of 38,000 new homes, with the emphasis on help for the vast majority who don’t need social housing but can’t afford to buy in Vancouver’s super-heated housing market.

In this useful summary in today’s Sun, Councillor Raymond Louie lays out some of the far-reaching recommendations, which build on the success of the city’s Short Term Incentives for Rental Program.

The STIR, with 1,000 units already approved or in process, has doubled rental construction in the city since the last election. It is strongly opposed by the NPA, suggesting the upcoming election will be a good test of where people stand on the biggest problem facing the city — the lack of affordable housing.