Mayor's housing plan: Can 220,000 units be built in Vancouver in 10 years?

Artistic rendering of a potential design concept for the redevelopment of the Jericho Lands in Vancouver's West Point Grey neighbourhood. (MST Development Corporation/Canada Lands Company)

One of Forward Together’s most significant civic election campaign platform promises is its pitch to catalyze 220,000 new homes in Vancouver over 10 years.

Ever since this platform promise was announced last month, the six-digit figure of how many homes will be generated has attracted some skepticism over its feasibility to achieve.

It would be equivalent to more than tripling the City of Vancouver’s existing 10-year Housing Vancouver strategy of catalyzing 72,000 new homes of various tenures and physical typologies for a wide range of incomes and needs. Housing Vancouver spans 2017 to 2028, and was implemented by the previous City Council led by Vision Vancouver.

So far, in the fourth year of the plan, the municipal government has approved 52% of its target or over 37,000 homes, including 8,800 in 2021 by the current City Council.

For further context, 220,000 homes is equivalent to building 37 Senakws across Vancouver.

You might also like:

In an interview with Daily Hive Urbanized, Forward Together incumbent mayor Kennedy Stewart explains how he believes 220,000 units or an average of 22,000 units each year is realistic.

Let’s start with, where?

He says much of the totals will come from future large-scale, neighbourhood-sized developments. He named the Jericho Lands, old Molson brewery, the redevelopment of the old St. Paul’s Hospital in the West End when it permanently closes later this decade, South False Creek, Northeast False Creek, and the densification of single-family neighbourhoods around the East Vancouver SkyTrain stations of Nanaimo Station, Renfrew Station, and Rupert Station.

This past year, the current City Council approved a planning process similar to the Broadway Plan to densify several square kilometres around Renfrew and Rupert stations. A similar area planning process is also possible for Nanaimo Station. As well, the Vancouver Plan’s components would also be implemented.

“When you start adding up all of these lots, if we can get them approved or enabled, I think it would be the best,” he said.

Stewart also invoked the possibilities of densification through the approved Broadway Plan, which provided the framework of adding 30,000 more homes around the six future subway stations of SkyTrain’s Millennium Line Broadway Extension to Arbutus, now under construction. The future SkyTrain extension west of Arbutus to the University of British Columbia campus would also trigger densification in the areas it will serve, along with other transit-oriented developments triggered by public transit improvements through TransLink’s Transport 2050 plan.

In areas suitable for gentle densification, Stewart would expand his Making Home strategy of allowing up to six units on a single-family lot, which would be geared towards serving middle-class affordability.

“That’s why I think we can hit that target of 220,000 homes. But if we don’t shoot big, we’re never going to hit it,” said Stewart.

The figure of 220,000 homes can be broken down into 140,000 market rental, below-market rental, social housing, and co-op units, 40,000 new ground-oriented ownership homes for the middle class, and 40,000 market ownership condominiums or townhomes.

Then there’s the question of, how will it be done?

To say the least, the current City Council was extremely divided over its four-year term. As an independent, Stewart was unable to push forward with his key policies and priorities, and while City Council approved almost every single rezoning proposal and strategy policy that was presented to them for a decision, the process to review and vote on the projects could be best described as dysfunctional.

For this reason, earlier this year, Stewart formed his own party, Forward Together, to field city councillor candidates that can work together under party unity — something that has not been seen since Vision Vancouver’s decade of governance. Forward Together is running a total of six city councillor candidates, but zero for the Park Board and School Board.

To achieve the approval of 220,000 units, a new united front would approve the strategies of expanding pre-zoning for rental and social housing, modernizing public hearings and permitting to be more efficient, creating new specialized project approval teams for the aforementioned large-scale, neighbourhood-sized projects, reforming community amenity contributions (CACs) and other policies to speed up housing development, and introducing pre-approval for common building types such as laneway homes.

“I know we can hit this, but I just need a team to do it,” he said.

When asked to comment on whether reaching 220,000 home approvals is feasible, Peter Mesizner, a city councillor candidate for the ABC Vancouver party, said “Stewart’s record on housing has been a failure.”

“Rents are up 30% two years and we have a severe shortage of affordable housing in this city. He can promise the moon, but the fact is, he’s been mayor for the past four years and has been unable to make any significant progress on this file,” Meiszner told Daily Hive Urbanized.

“Vancouverites need to ask themselves, what makes them think the next four years would be any different with this mayor at the helm? Time for new leadership and ideas.”

Colleen Hardwick, a city councillor and the mayoral candidate for the TEAM For A Livable Vancouver party, has been outspoken over the course of the term on doing more of the same in generating added housing supply, and questioning the need for more supply.

When asked to comment, she sent the following statement: “Kennedy Stewart’s entire housing plan is simply unbelievable — and it is a dream come true for major corporate developers. The vast majority of housing would be market condos and rentals — at already sky-high prices — and 22,000 a year is both unachievable and unneeded with 100,000 units in the pipeline already. Vancouver needs more affordable housing, not high-rise concrete towers bought by outside investors that will only increase the affordability crisis.”

Stewart argues his party’s efforts towards 220,000 homes would also build on the pro-housing momentum of the current provincial and federal governments, which both have various aggressive housing policies and programs.

David Eby, who is widely presumed to become the next Premier of British Columbia later this fall, following a forthcoming decision by the BC NDP on their new party leader, rolled out a sweeping housing platform earlier this month that promises to overturn the housing strategy in a bid to reach affordability.

Under Eby, significant new housing supply would be introduced by new provincial government interventions in both provincial and municipal jurisdictions, new inputs, and new funding and overarching strategies, including a new major public housing push. And even TransLink has big plans to get into the real estate development business.

But even if the municipal government reforms its housing review and approval processes, there are other challenges with generating new housing.

Approving housing is one thing, but building it is another.

So, can Vancouver build that many homes in such a short period? And with consideration to the 220,000 figure accounting for just the city of Vancouver — other cities in Metro Vancouver and elsewhere in British Columbia will also be increasing their pace of catalyzing new housing, due in large part to the provincial government’s forthcoming strategies.

A new report by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation found that BC is severely challenged with generating new housing supply above established targets due to a shortage of skilled workers. The shortage in construction labour was already a growing issue over the past decade, but it is now exacerbated by the pandemic’s lasting impact on the workforce.

Metro Vancouver also has numerous major transportation infrastructure projects, such as SkyTrain extensions, and major new hospitals that compete for the same limited pool of skilled labour.

But it should be noted that BC is not alone in its shortage of skilled workers.

“Even if the labour force operates under best-case scenarios, housing starts will fall well below the 2030 affordable targets in all major provinces except Alberta. Alberta will be able to achieve its affordable housing supply target by 2030 whereas Ontario, Quebec and BC will have to double the number of starts that they can produce under best-case scenarios,” reads the report, noting “labour capacity will be a big problem and it might make housing less affordable.”

“Under any scenario, capacity problems are most acute in Ontario, the province with the largest population and the highest price pressures. Quebec and BC will also not have the labour capacity to increase housing supply through housing starts but to a lesser extent than Ontario. This also suggests that improvements in labour supply and efficiency may be in reach, unlike in Ontario where the gaps are too large.”

Most projects that were approved by City Council and/or the City’s Development Permit Board over the past four years will not be built for at least a few more years at the earliest, if not towards the end of this decade.

For instance, planning for the redevelopment of the Ashley Mar Housing Co-operative with 649 rental homes next to SkyTrain Marine Drive Station first began in 2015, when the co-op selected a development partner. In early 2020, the proponents received approval from City Council to submit a proposal with more height and density than what is allowed by regulations for consideration. A rezoning application was submitted several weeks later in early 2020, the proposal was revised again in January 2021 with even more height and density for more homes, and it was finally approved by City Council in November 2021, which led to the next step of the development permit application.

The subsequent, separate development permit for Ashley Mar was approved in May 2022, and construction officially began in late September 2022 for a targeted completion in Summer 2025 — a whole decade since the co-op began pursuing a redevelopment to replace its aging structures.

Simply put, under the current policy framework, it takes a very long runway to get major housing projects planned, proposed, approved, and built. Many, if not most, of the homes already approved in the initial years of the previous City Council’s 10-year Housing Vancouver strategy have yet to be actually built.

Market forces affecting real estate demand, construction materials and equipment, and skilled labour overwhelmingly dictate how much housing can be ultimately constructed. Policymakers, specifically the provincial government, need to do more than just fix the municipal approval process. Even if the cities begin to push harder on housing on their own accord, it may not result in the acceleration of actually realizing housing.

The civic election is scheduled for October 15, 2022.

You might also like: