Vancouver council to debate Downtown Eastside's ratio of housing types

60-40: Vancouver City Council to debate Downtown Eastside's ratio of social and market housing

Artistic rendering of the regeneration of the prominent intersection of Main and Hastings streets in the Downtown Eastside Area Plan. (City of Vancouver)

A decade after the controversial Downtown Eastside Area Plan was approved and enacted by Vancouver City Council, relatively little new affordable housing supply has been achieved.

According to ABC Councillor Rebecca Bligh, just two projects have been built in the area over this period – the projects of 288 East Hastings Street and 41 East Hastings Street, which generated a combined total of about 250 homes under the area plan’s prescription of a “60-40” housing ratio model.

The ratio requires 60% social housing – including 20% shelter rate, 20% BC Housing Income Limits rates, and 20% low-end-of-market rental rates – and 40% market-rental housing.

Through a member motion to be deliberated by council next week, Bligh has suggested a need to reconsider some existing policies and explore implementing new strategies to help realize more housing, including potentially reexamining the “60-40” aspect of the area plan.

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“Projects have not been penciling out, even with unprecedented government funding from both provincial and federal partners,” Bligh told Daily Hive Urbanized in an interview on Wednesday.

“We need to look at the current constraints on being able to deliver the housing units due to rising construction costs and increasing interest rates and determine whether or not that 60-40 formula will work at all, recognizing that over the 10 years we’ve only built two buildings with just over 200 units.”

In October 2020, city council approved a staff report with a $1 billion strategy outlining how the municipal government could partner with the provincial and federal governments to acquire thousands of private SROs and renovate or redevelop these properties into self-contained social housing units. Bligh says her motion will be complementary to the previously approved strategy, which needs a much longer timeline to achieve and depends on senior governments.

As of early 2023, there were 146 active SRO buildings with a combined total of 6,500 units in Vancouver. If there were an approach to replace one SRO building on an annual basis, it would take about 150 years to replace these poor-quality SRO units into more livable, self-contained social housing units, which she says is a major issue necessitating a rethink of the current approach.

Bligh’s motion would direct city staff to work with senior governments to explore how the full replacement of existing SROs can be accelerated, including a potential pilot project to support short-term repairs and renovations in SRO buildings in need of urgent improvements.

“This motion is linking housing with local economic development and health services so that people can live, work, and shop at whatever affordability rate that they’re at in the community, which will then stabilize people and allow them to have that agency and be empowered in their lives to make choices,” she told Daily Hive Urbanized.

“If we can do that holistically, connecting it to the housing deliverable outcomes, we have a greater chance of making sure that we bring out the best of what the Downtown Eastside is.”

Army & Navy 15-27 West Hastings Street 8-36 West Cordova Street Vancouver rezoning

Artistic rendering of the Army & Navy redevelopment at 15-27 West Hastings Street and 8-36 West Cordova Street, in relation to the height of nearby towers. (Michael Green Architecture/Bosa Properties)

Artistic rendering of the Army & Navy redevelopment at 15-27 West Hastings Street and 8-36 West Cordova Street. (Michael Green Architecture/Bosa Properties)

Other directives in Bligh’s motion include considering below-market commercial spaces in the Downtown Eastside and possibly elsewhere in the city, and asking the provincial government to expand shelter spaces and supportive housing with the specification that it be done across Metro Vancouver to “stabilize and better support people in their home communities.” Vancouver is home to 25% of Metro Vancouver’s regional population, but it has over 75% of the region’s shelter spaces, 77% of the region’s supportive housing units, and 50% of the region’s social housing.

Other than the potential “60-40” formula re-analysis, another major directive would ask city staff to expedite a right-of-first-refusal bylaw that would provide the municipal government the first option to purchase buildings or lands for sale to build supportive housing or social housing.

If the motion is approved, staff will report back on their findings and recommendations later in 2024, including a 20-year assessment on the estimated number of units of supportive housing and social housing needed.

Earlier in the year, the Urbanarium non-profit organization held a public debate that questioned the prevailing “60-40” formula and whether the overall Downtown Eastside Area Plan needs to be redone.

Prior to the area plan’s finalization in 2014, there was a consideration to enable a wider range of mixed-income housing, particularly a larger ratio of market housing to re-establish a healthier and more vibrant area of the city after a decades-long downward spiral.

Critics say the “60-40” formula has greatly contributed to the further urban decay and worsening social issues of the Downtown Eastside. In contrast, some of the other areas of the downtown Vancouver peninsula have a “20-80” formula mix for new residential buildings, where 20% is social housing and 80% are market strata condominiums and/or market rental housing.

Critics also suggest the “60-40” formula has prevented the type of renewal needed in the Downtown Eastside and has perpetuated stagnation.

“That is all social housing in that neighbourhood. That is not a good mix. It is good for a healthy community to have a mix of housing. It will always be a low-income neighbourhood… I am not suggesting anyone should be displaced, but I am suggesting that the housing supply needs to be increased,” said Suzanne Anton, who is a former BC attorney general and Vancouver City Councillor.

The “60-40” formula of a majority proportion of social housing was incorporated into the area plan after community activists raised concerns that a higher proportion of market housing would gentrify the area and displace low-income people.

Michael Geller, a prominent urban planning consultant, says that is the precise medicine the ailing neighbourhood needs, including more projects like the redevelopment of the Woodwards department store, which has a housing mix of 27% social housing and 73% market housing, plus a significant infusion of retail and restaurant uses – anchored by London Drugs and Nesters Food Market – along with office space and Simon Fraser University’s largest satellite campus in downtown Vancouver.

The towers of the Woodwards complex in downtown Vancouver. (Shutterstock)

“We should indeed be building condos at Main and Hastings,” said Geller, emphasizing the need for more ownership housing opportunities in the community and broader retail uses to fill up many vacant storefronts.

“Many people have argued that there should not be more projects like Woodwards. I think there should be more projects like Woodwards; I think they are a success.”

He also suggests there is a confusion over the concepts of “gentrification” and “regeneration,” with the latter achieving a balance of considerations in the process of achieving improved overall outcomes for the neighbourhood.

“Gentrification means the gentry come in and the lower-income people are forced out. Regeneration means you can create a more vital vibrant community where the lower-income people are allowed to stay, and they’re not forced out,” Geller said.

“I really believe having looked at situations around the world, you can achieve that. Unfortunately in Vancouver, we have not achieved that because we’ve tried so hard with the best of intents to protect the lowest, most vulnerable people, but the unintended consequences are too visible on the streets.”

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