Green councillor Pete Fry wants City of Vancouver to move faster on rental-only zoning

Vancouver city councillor Pete Fry says that both the West End and Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhoods could benefit greatly from rental-only zoning.

“The West End is in crisis,” Fry told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview. “We are losing a dramatic amount of affordable rental housing in the West End, and it’s a true crisis in the true sense of the word, especially with the LGBTQ community.”

The same rental-zoning argument applies to Hastings-Sunrise and other East Side areas around Commercial Drive and Joyce-Collingwood Station, the Vancouver Green councillor said.

For the Joyce area, Fry noted that most of the new condo developments there are not tailored for families. “How do you fit them into a small apartment? Does that even work?” he asked.

The City of Vancouver has yet to utilize the rental-only zoning authority that the province has provided to local governments.

It will be a year on Wednesday (April 24) since the B.C. government introduced legislation giving municipalities a greater ability to preserve and increase rental housing. The law took effect on May 31, 2018, but only New Westminster has used the power so far.

In January this year, New Westminster city council adopted a bylaw applying the rental zoning to 12 city-owned properties and six condo buildings currently used as rentals. The city is now facing a lawsuit from owners of the private buildings, who claim that the zoning takes away their rights to sell their assets as strata properties.

According to Fry, rental-only zoning is a “tool that needs to be wielded with a great deal of discretion and thoughtfulness”.

He explained that the value of private properties in Vancouver runs to billions of dollars and any move to “essentially downzone the city will have possible repercussions”.

“We need to operate sensitively around that,” Fry said. “And, furthermore, if we were to downzone, for instance, property that’s been purchased, you know, with an expressed intent to do XYZ under the existing zoning—i.e., condos or whatever—if we then turn around and say, ‘Oh, you know what? We’re going to change the zoning on you and you can only do rental apartments,’ does that open us up to a lawsuit?”

That said, Fry noted that council has instructed city staff to prepare a report on what options the city can employ to apply rental-only zoning.

“Clearly, we’re in the throes of crisis too, so we don’t have time to sit on our hands on this,” Fry said. “So I’d like to see us moving faster on it. Coun.[Jean] Swanson and I and Coun. [Adriane] Carr, we’ve all been pushing to see more movement on that.”

According to Fry, the property-rights issue is one of the things City of Vancouver planners need to take a closer look at.

“I think if you’re effectively downzoning an area, then that might be problematic,” Fry said. “If it’s still an upzoning—I mean, if you have a low-density area that’s only zoned for, you know, modest density, and suddenly if you’re upzoning it for more density but it has to be rental-only zoning, that’s still a win.”

For rental-only zoning to work effectively, Fry said, it must be used “judiciously, like surgical-style”.