The City of Vancouver's affordable housing task force is set to release a final report that promises to unsettle residents who fear any changes to their neighbourhood's housing mix.
"We've got to be bold," task force member Peter Simpson told Business in Vancouver. "We're going to have to combat a sometimes-shrill very NIMBY (not in my back yard) pushback."
The Greater Vancouver Home Builders Association CEO wants developers to be able to build multi-family housing in traditional single-family neighbourhoods even though he knows many residents don't want to see that evolution.
Failing to loosen zoning restrictions in those areas will force aging homeowners out of their neighbourhoods when they're too old to be able to safely navigate stairs.
Other task force members told BIV that they support ideas that they know are controversial yet they want them to be in the task force's final report in June.
One of those ideas is to bring back an amped-up version of last year's STIR (short-term incentive for rental) program. This future STIR-on-steroids program would allow city council to waive property taxes for developers who build rental housing. The STIR program, which ended in December, waived development cost levies and gave developers bonus density if they built rental housing.
"Toronto realized that they had to go deeper [in its version of STIR], so they did something that I'm not sure is universally popular: they waived property taxes for a window of time," said Mark Guslits, a task force member and the owner of Guslits & Associates Inc.
Some still call Guslits "Toronto's former housing czar," even though his official position between 1998 and 2002 was special adviser on housing to the City of Toronto. Vancouver has no similar position, although task force members told BIV that the city should create one given the importance of making housing more affordable in Vancouver.
Mayor Gregor Robertson has ranked affordable housing as one of his top priorities and has sat in on all of the task force's meetings, often with his city manager and chief of staff. "I hear mounting concerns about the lack of affordable housing from business owners," Robertson told BIV. "It's something I take very seriously as mayor. We can't afford to become a city where housing costs inhibit job creation and investment."
Housing consultants at Demographia announced earlier this year that Vancouver had passed Sydney, Australia, to become the English-speaking world's second priciest city, as a multiple of the median income, after Hong Kong.
Task force chairwoman Olga Ilich told BIV that the biggest issue the task force should address is how to allow forms of housing Vancouver does not have now.
For example, she said Vancouver has few townhouses and no "stacked" townhouses. The latter, which are common in Toronto and Montreal, are two multi-level townhouses built one atop the other with the upper unit accessible via an inside or outside staircase.
Ilich, who was in cabinet during former Premier Gordon Campbell's second term, wants Premier Christy Clark's government to change the Land Title Act to eliminate the requirement that multi-family developments be stratified. That change would mean homeowners could cut their own grass, wash their own windows and mend their own fences – all to avoid having to pay strata fees.
Another likely task force recommendation will be to create an inventory of the city's real estate assets, including small odd-shaped packages and abandoned roads, which have yet to be considered housing sites. •
