Affordable housing, transportation, and crime are top issues for Metro Vancouver voters: survey
With just a little over a month to go before the October 15 civic election in Metro Vancouver, politicians and political parties are now quickly ramping up the release of their positions and platforms.
Providing some guidance for the development of policy is the findings of the Metro Elects survey conducted in August by Mustel Group, commissioned by the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade (GVBOT).
The business group states it formally presented the survey’s findings to municipal politicians and candidates this week, which is based on a random sample of 500 adults in Metro Vancouver (residents), 180 members of GVBOT (businesses), and 65 current mayors and councillors, and candidates (politicians) in the upcoming election.
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The need for affordable housing solutions is overwhelmingly the top issue for the general public and politicians, but it is the second priority for businesses. However, businesses also ranked permitting, licensing, and red tape as their top issue, which is directly related to the ability to build more housing supply to help address affordability.
Both residents (75%) and politicians (89%) are supportive of the municipal government accelerating the development of affordable housing, and agree that essential service workers should be able to afford to live near where they work.
Residents and politicians are also more likely to desire the development of rental housing, non-market rental housing, and social housing for lower-income households prioritized. However, politicians are more inclined than residents to support densification along arterial roads and public transit corridors and to introduce gentle densification in traditionally low-density neighbourhoods. With that said, 80% of residents would support the addition of multi-family housing of at least three storeys in their own neighbourhood.
For months, the provincial government has been hinting that it will introduce legislation after the civic election to compel municipal governments to approve more housing. Politicians are much more likely to be opposed to the provincial government overriding municipal control over land use decisions, while the opposite is true for residents and businesses.
Most residents (66%) and especially businesses (72%) think their municipal government is not adequately planning for the infrastructure and community services needed for their growing population, especially residents of the City of Vancouver. But the majority of politicians (57%) think their municipal governments have been planning adequately.
Nearly half (47%) of residents and most businesses (61%) do not believe increased property taxes have been invested in ways that improve city services. Conversely, 68% of politicians think their property tax hikes were productive.
When it comes to transportation, a majority of residents, politicians, and businesses believe more investments need to be made in public transit, with South of Fraser residents being the most critical.
All three respondent groups are very supportive of TransLink’s proposals to expand bus services, introduce significant bus rapid transit (BRT) across the region, extend SkyTrain to UBC, and bring rapid transit to the North Shore.
TransLink has indicated that in order for BRT to be implemented, it will need to repurpose existing road space dedicated to cars. Politicians (68%) are more likely to support the reallocation of road space, with a quarter (26%) supporting it on a case-to-case location basis, while residents are practically evenly split between full support (40%) and case-to-case location basis (45%).
But there is lukewarm support for the gondola line to the SFU Burnaby Mountain campus, with support levels of 49% for residents, 54% for politicians, and 24% for businesses. About one-fifth to one quarter are opposed, and a relatively high proportion of over one quarter are undecided.
Politicians are also much more likely to be enthusiastic for bike lanes and micromobility solutions (such as e-scooters and bike share) than the other two groups. Only 45% of residents and 47% of businesses support bike lanes, with similar proportions against, but 86% of politicians support bike lanes, with 6% against.
Crime/public safety is a top three issue for both residents and businesses, but further down the list for politicians.
The issue of environment/climate change is much more likely to be at the top of the minds of politicians than the general public.
Within only the City of Vancouver, the top three issues are affordable housing (38%), homelessness (33%), and crime/public safety (25%). The region’s core city also saw more mentions than other municipalities for mental health/addiction (18%), concerns about governance, transparency, bureaucracy, and fiscal responsibility (19%), taxes (12%), and core services (9%).
Top 10 issues for residents in Metro Vancouver:
- Affordable housing: 34%
- Transportation/public transit: 20%
- Crime/public safety: 19%
- Homelessness: 16%
- Transparency/fiscal responsibility: 13%
- Environment/climate change: 13%
- Planning/infrastructure: 12%
- Overdevelopment/densification: 11%
- Mental health/drug crisis: 9%
- (tie) Affordability/cost of living and preserving neighbourhood character: 8% each
Top 10 issues for politicians in Metro Vancouver:
- Affordable housing: 65%
- Planning/infrastructure: 35%
- Environment/climate change: 34%
- Transportation/public transit: 29%
- Crime/public safety: 20%
- Transparency/fiscal responsibility: 20%
- Community planning: 19%
- Infrastructure: 17%
- Mental health/drug crisis: 11%
- Economic/business friendly: 11%
Top 10 issues for businesses in Metro Vancouver:
- Permitting, red tape reduction: 50%
- Housing: 48%
- (tie) Crime/public safety and economic/business friendly: 44% each
- Taxes: 35%
- Homelessness: 33%
- Public transportation: 29%
- Environment/climate change: 26%
- Core services (trash collection, etc.): 25%
- Overdose/drug crisis: 22%
- (tie) Downtown revitalization and road network: 19% each
- You might also like:
- How BC can solve the “wicked problem” of housing affordability
- TransLink to double bus service, including 9 new Bus Rapid Transit lines
- TransLink outlines proposed UBC SkyTrain route and station locations
- Buses first, SkyTrain maybe later: TransLink planning bus rapid transit from Park Royal to Metrotown