Here’s how top Vancouver mayoral candidates would tackle housing affordability

A single-family neighbourhood backdropped by the transit-oriented development towers around SkyTrain Marine Drive Station in South Vancouver. (Google Maps)

This should come as unsurprising, to say the least, but a recent survey leading up to the civic election campaign cycle found that Metro Vancouver’s housing affordability crisis is the top issue.

Housing is the top issue across the board for residents (34%), businesses (50%), and politicians (65%), according to the survey.

Despite interventions from various levels of government, the epicentre of the region’s housing crisis, Vancouver, continues to see deteriorating housing affordability, with double-digit increases in the percentage of home prices and rents.

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So what do the top mayoral candidates in Vancouver’s civic election have for their game plan in addressing housing affordability through the powers of the municipal government?

Here’s what the mayoral candidates told us in separate interviews with Daily Hive Urbanized, along with key promises in their party’s election platforms:

Kennedy Stewart — Forward Together Vancouver

Forward Together mayor Kennedy Stewart at a Senakw event. (Forward Together)

Incumbent candidate Kennedy Stewart of the Forward Together party has made a significant pitch of changing the municipal government’s review and approval policies in order to catalyze 220,000 new homes over 10 years — an average of approving 22,000 homes per year over the coming decade or nearly three times the rate achieved by the City in 2021. These homes will be of mixed tenures and types for a wide range of incomes and needs.

“If we don’t shoot big, we’re never going to hit it,” said Stewart.

He has also been advocating for stronger renter protections and has committed to expanding the Broadway Plan’s approved protections as a city-wide policy. This includes offering existing tenants the right to move back into replacement homes at the same or lower rent than before and making rental homes more pet-friendly.

The Mayor emphasized on the need for secured purpose-built rental homes over generating more supply through unsecured basement suites. More density makes it more feasible for builders to construct rentals, he says.

“Owners of secured buildings do not want turnover, and that’s why I’ve worked so hard. I’ve talked to a lot of condo builders, and I’ve asked, can you flip these to market rental? They’ve said, sure. It’s not below market, but at least it’s not like a $2 million condo,” said Stewart.

“That’s what I’ve been doing, and this is the whole reason why I’m seeking a second term. It’s to complete this work, and I think we can really make good steps.”

Stewart has also been spearheading interventionist measures in demand by increasing the Empty Homes Tax. He wants the tax rate to be set at no less than 5% to discourage speculation.

Ken Sim — ABC Vancouver

Ken Sim (ABC Vancouver)

In addition to generating new supply, ABC Vancouver mayoral candidate Ken Sim is putting a real emphasis on fixing the municipal permitting process and delays, which will cut down the significant added costs to projects.

“When you’re trying to build a place and you don’t have certainty on the permits and community amenity contributions (CACs), you need to build in a bunch of premiums. Where’s my demand going to be for my units in eight years? Am I going to be able to get the financing? What are the cost of materials? The delays add to the risk, which adds to the price and then size of premiums,” said Sim.

“If we fix this, we can bring housing to the market faster, so more people can live in these units and they can contribute to the tax base, which has a ripple effect on everything else in this city.”

ABC is promising to create a “3 x 3 x 3 x 1” permit approval system: three days to approve home renovations, three weeks to approve single-family homes and townhomes, three months to approve multi-family and mid-rise projects following existing zoning, and one year to approve a high-rise or large-scale residential project — down from six years.

Other policies include predictable formulas for CACs instead of the City’s current practice of negotiating each project, and pre-approving five standard laneway home designs to speed up construction.

Colleen Hardwick — TEAM Vancouver

Colleen Hardwick (TEAM)

City councillor and mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick of TEAM For A Livable Vancouver also believes in the need to fix the City’s permitting system.

“We’ve been bogged down, so efficiency in time is one of the key variables in starting to bring the cost of housing production into line,” said Hardwick.

But where Hardwick deviates from the other major candidates is what is allowed to be built.

She believes rezoning for significant density is a major contributor to runaway housing prices as it inflates the land value for not only the property but also the area around it. She also greatly questions how City staff arrived at their housing supply targets.

“So when you do that many, many, many times over as we’ve seen over the last decade-plus, it has ultimately exponentially increased land values,” she said, suggesting that the municipal government depends on this type of development to sustain its own inflated budget.

“It all starts with the land if we want to talk about affordability. We have to stop inflating landfill is an excessive pace of change. So what I believe to happen is that we have to really restore balance to the pace of change, which means that we’re going to have to curtail this notion of promoting growth to find the council priorities.”

If elected, TEAM will rescind the recently approved Broadway Plan and Vancouver Plan and replace the strategies with neighbourhood-based planning efforts, and focus on gentle density. They also want the municipal government to spend $500 million to build 2,000 affordable cooperative homes on City-owned properties, with the final decision on such an investment determined by a referendum.

Mark Marissen — Progress Vancouver

Mark Marissen (Progress Vancouver)

Progress Vancouver mayoral candidate Mark Marissen will allow multi-family rental buildings across more of the city, create a new municipal agency that builds public housing, renew and build more cooperative homes, increase renter protections, reform CACs, and streamline the permitting and approvals process.

Focusing on generating more supply, the number of homes approved by the municipal government would nearly double to 15,000 units annually, with 50% being rentals.

“We need the full spectrum of housing right to the expensive housing because if we don’t build the expensive housing, then the rich people are going to be outbidding everyone for the less expensive housing. One of the first things we could do is legalize it,” said Marissen.

He also suggested there are clear wins by putting more housing next to public transit and near schools with falling student enrolment.

“It’s quite understandable when you see expensive houses around these schools that young families won’t live in. We need to bring these families back into our city — they’re in Richmond, Burnaby, and Coquitlam. A lot of them are working in Vancouver. Just by doing that, you tackle affordability from a number of angles, including a house that may be affordable to you, and a life where you’re not commuting as much.”

Fred Harding — NPA Vancouver

Fred Harding (NPA Vancouver)

“The city just doesn’t have the wherewithal. It has the land, but it doesn’t have the wherewithal to build supply,” said Non-Partisan Association mayoral candidate Fred Harding.

Government interventionist policies like vacancy and foreign buyers taxes have failed to put a real curb on escalating housing affordability, he says. This is because not enough supply is being, especially rentals.

Yet the municipal government has made it so challenging for developers to build more housing, going as far as describing the situation for developers as “toxic.” He says developers are now focusing on other municipal jurisdictions in the region where housing is simpler, cheaper, and more predictable to achieve.

The NPA’s housing platform includes predictable flat rate CACs, setting new housing supply targets based on immigration numbers, and establishing mandated permit wait times to cut the red tape. “What I want to make sure for developers is there’s certainty,” he said.

Harding also wants to focus on catalyzing livable homes — units that are properly sized for a wide range of needs, avoiding building multi-family units that are too small for practical living.

“Look, I grew up in a two-storey house. The ground floor was about the same size as this Daily Hive boardroom. And I had nine brothers and sisters and my mother in a space like this. I used to tell my children at our house in Vancouver to appreciate what it was like for me growing up as a child,” said Harding.

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