Vancouver's new housing agency doesn't go "nearly far enough", COPE says

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      The City of Vancouver is moving forward with a housing agency that it says is aimed at generating 500 affordable housing units in the next three years.

      City council heard from a series of speakers Wednesday (July 9) on the new body, including several members of the Coalition of Progressive Electors, who criticized the agency for not going “nearly far enough”.

      The agency, which was originally proposed by the Mayor’s Task Force on Housing Affordability, is intended to act as a “catalyst” for new affordable housing projects, according to the city’s chief housing officer, Mukhtar Latif. City council approved the task force's recommendations, including a plan to establish a local housing authority, in October 2012.

      The affordability of the housing units will be targeted at low to moderate-income households, ranging from people on welfare to a maximum household income of $86,500. It is aimed at generating a total of 2,500 housing units by 2021.

      “The fundamental point made by the housing task force two years ago was that there should be a strong commitment at the policy level to the development of affordable housing right across the spectrum,” said Vision Vancouver councillor Geoff Meggs as council moved to receive the report.

      “There’s a range of incomes which are struggling with affordability because the private sector’s not able to produce, or unwilling to produce…condos and apartments at levels that are affordable to many working families," he added.

      “So those moderate-income households are looking for relief, and the homeless strategy deals with one end of the crisis, but there’s a very large part of our city that are not getting housing relief in that moderate income range, and what was needed, or the how, was this agency.”

      COPE representatives argued that the city’s agency won’t do enough to address the housing gap. Speakers compared the agency to COPE’s proposed housing authority program, a plank of its election platform approved by its members at an annual general meeting on July 6.

      “The key difference here is that a strong authority will be able to build social housing or subsidized housing that poor people and low-income people…can afford,” Tristan Markle told council.

      “In order to do that…it has to have the power to build housing.”

      “The housing agency proposed here today is one that is not empowered to build housing, and it relies on private developers while allowing them to keep profits,” stated Sarah Beuhler.

      “Under our plan, what we will do is levy a special tax on private developers, as well as a luxury housing tax.”

      COPE’s proposed housing authority program would build 800 units of social housing each year, according to the party, funded in part through a tax on houses valued at more than $1.5 million, levies and contributions from developers, and Property Endowment Fund revenues. It would also own the housing it builds, and would be governed by a board including tenants and community members.

      Other speakers who addressed council on the housing agency Wednesday included former city planner and housing affordability task force member Nathan Edelson.

      “Housing is about people, not about numbers of units...it’s important to set challenging goals for the amount of housing that will be built,” he stated.

      “To do this we need a clear benchmark. This should start with an indication of how much affordable housing would’ve been built without the new agency, and there needs to be a number that doesn’t double count, inadvertently, units that would be built as part of the strategy to end homelessness.”

      Edelson also pointed to the importance of urban design for new affordable housing. 

      “Ultimately, city council and the staff for whom they work will not be cherished for packing people into small high-rise apartments along busy arterials,” he said.

      “Our job is not to warehouse people, but to house them in great and inclusive neighbourhoods. These need community amenities, great parks, schools, and places that provide social, health and affordable commercial services for the diversity of people who live nearby.”

      After council concluded hearing from speakers, Non-Partisan Association councillor George Affleck moved a motion calling for council to publicly ratify a decision it made during an earlier in-camera meeting to create the agency, to expedite reporting out from that meeting, and for the city to include a representative from council on the board of the new housing agency. After the other parts of his motion were ruled out of order, council voted to release details from the closed meeting.

      "I just thought why did we have all these speakers if it didn’t matter?" Affleck said in a phone interview Thursday (July 10). "I didn’t feel comfortable not having a vote on it in public."

      According to city staff, the in-camera decision was required to set up the new legal entity.

      Earlier this week, city council heard an update from city manager Penny Ballem on Vancouver’s strategy to address homelessness. According to Ballem, council’s plan to end street homelessness by 2015 can still be achieved through support from senior levels of government.

      Those forms of support include rent subsidies and an adequate number of low-barrier winter shelter beds provided this year from B.C. Housing, the city manager said.

      Other factors Vancouver is counting on include an “adequate pace” of delivery for new or interim supportive housing within the next year, strategies to prevent more people becoming homeless, and sustained affordability and maintenance of the city’s low-income single-room occupancy housing stock.

      Results from the Metro Vancouver homeless count released in March showed that the number of unsheltered homeless in Vancouver increased from 273 in last year’s local count to 538 this year.

      Comments

      11 Comments

      Mr Practical

      Jul 10, 2014 at 10:49am

      I agree, the only way to solve the housing problem is to put Big Real estate in charge of the housing agency at city hall, and keep them well fed with $25k Lunches.

      Bruce

      Jul 10, 2014 at 10:50am

      So Vision proposes to generate 2500 units by 2021. COPE, if I'm reading it right, proposes to generate about 5000 units by 2021.

      Meanwhile, there are well over 10,000 condos standing empty. But I guess building units is a lot more exciting than passing a simple fine/tax on empty units, or a measure to forbid stratas from restricting condo rentals.

      Imtiaz Popat

      Jul 10, 2014 at 11:16am

      COPE is the only party criticizing Visions lack of vision in their new housing agency which they say will be a one stop solution for developers.

      @Bruce

      Jul 10, 2014 at 1:04pm

      Those empty condos are mostly rented out.

      Mark

      Jul 10, 2014 at 1:21pm

      @Bruce - Those empty condos are not mostly rented out at all. Walk through Coal Harbour in the afternoon, like I do, and it's a ghost city. I know, I live there.

      tf

      Jul 10, 2014 at 2:13pm

      Thanks for reporting on Nathan Edelson's comments. He is someone we can learn from.

      “Housing is about people, not about numbers of units…"

      Edelson also pointed to the importance of urban design for new affordable housing.

      “Ultimately, city council and the staff for whom they work will not be cherished for packing people into small high-rise apartments along busy arterials,” he said.

      “Our job is not to warehouse people, but to house them in great and inclusive neighbourhoods. These need community amenities, great parks, schools, and places that provide social, health and affordable commercial services for the diversity of people who live nearby.”

      Hear, hear!

      Tara Sundberg

      Jul 10, 2014 at 4:11pm

      Through Zoning by-laws, the city has the power to legislate a great deal more affordable housing than these numbers. All new developments should be mandated to include at least 10% affordable housing, or your development permit is not approved. Yes, that means EVERY new development. Integration and diversity is the key to healthy, thriving communities. Developers wouldn't develop if they weren't making BUCKETS of $$, the city must insist that some of that profit goes directly to truly affordable housing. We need it now, not in 7 years.

      @Bruce

      Jul 10, 2014 at 10:18pm

      Do you have any info about the legality of forbidding those kinds of covenants on strata buildings? I always assumed that would be an invitation to a lawsuit jamboree.

      The reading I've done have poked big holes in the empty condo theory - mostly because it seems that if the owner doesn't live there, they're considered "empty". But nobody could/did cross reference with the rentals list (is there one?)

      Mark Bowen

      Jul 10, 2014 at 10:34pm

      Yeah, it doesn't go far enough, not nearly enough.

      COPE still doesn't present a hard plan to explain how they could go further.

      This is just politiking BS.

      Bruce

      Jul 11, 2014 at 9:00am

      @@Bruce

      " the city overall has a much higher rate of empty apartments and houses than other Canadian cities, with a rate closer to places like New York and San Francisco at the height of their mortgage crisis in 2010...Downtown, the rate is so high that it’s as though there were 35 towers at 20 storeys apiece – empty...
      That’s the latest discovery that adjunct UBC planning professor Andrew Yan made when he analyzed 2011 census numbers..."

      http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouvers-vacancie...

      Here's a report by Tenants BC that goes over the issue of a "right to rent" for condo owners. It looks like the ability to restrict rentals was only given in 2000 or so. I can't see any legitimate grounds for court action, as it should increase the utility and value for the owner.

      Note their estimate at the end of the report, which concludes "right to rent" legislation alone could unlock 6000 rental units in Vancouver. A city council united on that issue should have a fair bit of sway with the province.

      6000 units would already be more than COPE's socialized housing development plans. And that's before considering applying high fines/taxes to empty units, as we should - leaving a unit empty is unethical.

      http://www.tenants.bc.ca/ckfinder/userfiles/files/RSH%20The%20Role%20of%...