GREEN HOUSING PLATFORM

The Challenge

Vancouver is growing and is already one of the densest cities in North America, adding over 30,000 new residents over the past five years. 

Population growth means increased demand for housing. But much of the new housing that has been built is not suitable nor affordable for average and low-income earners, or for the under- and unemployed. New housing supply has largely catered to higher incomes, which has exacerbated the housing crisis by driving up land values and housing prices to amongst the highest in the world. A hot housing market has resulted in the neglect and tear-down of too much of Vancouver’s older, more affordable housing.

The housing crisis now affects a majority of Vancouverites as evidenced by high housing costs relative to income, low vacancy rates, and a growing number of underhoused and homeless residents. 

The housing crisis started when senior governments stopped investing in rental, social and co-op housing in the 1990s. Although they have recently started to step up their investment, Vancouver’s housing needs still far exceed the resources being made available, especially when you consider that the City has been carrying a disproportionate burden to deliver housing to meet the complex needs of the Metro Vancouver region.

The crisis has been made worse by the pandemic, increased construction costs, and rising interest rates, making the delivery of new affordable housing more difficult. The city also shares some blame. Although we’ve approved a record number of housing units in recent years, delivery of new housing has been impacted by overly-cumbersome and slow permitting processes, and lengthy divisive public hearings around neighbourhood change.

Greens believe that housing must be affordable for the people who live and work in Vancouver. There are measures the city can take to protect and increase affordability, and increase the supply and timely delivery of housing to meet people’s needs.

Top Priorities

Green Councillors will champion strategies to meet Vancouver’s housing needs that include zoning to enable non-profit-owned and co-op housing to be built quickly without rezonings, ensuring the equitable and strategic distribution of affordable housing across the city, increasing city-developed affordable housing on city-owned lands, and guaranteeing quick permitting timelines and reducing regulatory barriers. 

Greens commit to quickly bringing forward the following measures to address our housing crisis:

  • Tie affordability to renter income, not market rents. Greens will define ‘affordable rent’ as 30% of median renter household income.
  • Protect tenants: against renoviction, demoviction, and displacement and guarantee right of return at affordable rents. 
  • Ensure tenant safety. Strengthen and more vigorously enforce the Standards of Maintenance Bylaw so that buildings do not dangerously deteriorate.
  • Protect affordability over time. Stabilize rents by limiting rent increases for units, not just tenants.
  • Guarantee permit timelines to create certainty for builders, reduce costs, and  speed-up delivery of housing.
  • Implement a simple menu of repeatable building forms, from tiny homes to multifamily buildings, to fast-track permits and reduce costs and building times. 
  • Streamline re-zoning and development permits by making them happen at same time on select housing.
  • Ramp up the development of City-owned housing: acquire more land for housing using right-of-first-refusal and co-locate affordable housing in new public buildings such as libraries, fire halls and community facilities, but excluding park lands.   
  • Fast-track rapid shelter solutions like tiny home communities on empty lots to provide transitional housing with health supports for people who are unhoused. 
  • Ensure adequate wrap-around services in Supportive Housing Units by making tenanting, staffing and operational agreements a condition of occupancy permits.
  • Deliver community amenities to complement housing. Planning must ensure equity in accessible local amenities like parks and greenspace, child care, transportation, schools, and businesses across the city.
  • Increase affordable, co-op and non-market zoning. Expand pre-zoning and use rental-only zoning powers to meet Vancouver residents’ needs, increase the supply of affordable and market rental housing, and dampen speculation.

Solutions

SET HOUSING TARGETS BASED ON LOCAL INCOMES AND NEEDS 

ENSURE THE VANCOUVER PLAN DELIVERS NEEDED HOUSING AND COMMUNITY AMENITIES

MAXIMIZE CITY ZONING POWERS TO DELIVER THE MOST NEEDED HOUSING

REDUCE OBSTACLES TO DEVELOPING AFFORDABLE CLIMATE-SMART HOUSING

PROTECT  RENTERS’ HOMES, SAFETY, AND INCOME

BETTER LEVERAGE CITY ASSETS TO DELIVER AFFORDABLE HOUSING

TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION FOR HOMELESS AND UNDERHOUSED VANCOUVERITES

ADVOCACY

GREEN ACCOMPLISHMENTS ON HOUSING

SET HOUSING TARGETS BASED ON LOCAL INCOMES AND NEEDS

Vancouver’s current targets need to be updated immediately to make sure all housing-related policies and plans deliver actual affordability. Greens will:

  • Tie affordability to income. Vancouver’s housing programs aren’t delivering homes that most renters can afford, because they define affordability in relation to market rents. We will use renter household incomes as our benchmark, and define affordable rents at a maximum of 30%, to ensure that mid- to low-income families aren’t left behind.
  • Fix the definition of social housing. Vancouver’s definition of social housing does not require the units to be affordable to the average renter household. Right now, expensive and market-rate apartments are counted as social housing units. We will bring clarity and accountability back to Vancouver’s social housing approvals.
  • Set targets for non-market housing relative to need. Prioritize city-owned and city-built housing, co-ops, co-housing, supportive housing, non-profit-owned affordable rental, and affordable home ownership.
  • Increase availability of rentals. Vancouver’s current vacancy rate is less than 1%. We will establish a target vacancy rate of 3% and prioritize purpose-built rental incentives and approvals to achieve it. 
  • Meet diverse household requirements. Target housing near public amenities including specific targets for Indigenous, accessible, family-sized, and senior housing. 

ENSURE THE VANCOUVER PLAN DELIVERS NEEDED HOUSING AND COMMUNITY AMENITIES 

Land use and planning are the most important functions and responsibilities of City Council. The Green-initiated Vancouver Plan puts in motion the first city-wide plan in over 100 years. The plan will chart a course to deliver complete communities, with the right mix of amenities and housing, homes and buildings that are climate smart and resilient, with affordable housing options in every neighbourhood. Green Councillors will ensure the completed Vancouver Plan:

  • Resolves zoning conflicts. Inordinate amounts of time, energy, and good will are lost to vitriol and rhetoric in never-ending discussions over how and where to build new housing. The Vancouver Plan, to be completed with public participation, must put these questions to rest by clarifying land use zoning for housing to guide change over the next 30 years.
  • Protects tenants. The Vancouver Plan, like the Broadway Plan, must establish North America’s best tenant protections against renoviction, demoviction and displacement and for retained housing affordability when tenants have to move.
  • Ensures safe, climate-smart housing and development. Vancouver’s Building Bylaw will require new housing to be resilient with net zero carbon footprints, and adequate heating and cooling so homes are safe places for people in extreme cold and heat. The city-wide Vancouver Plan must require less car-dependent and more transit-oriented housing development.
  • Delivers community amenities to complement housing. Complete communities are more than the right mix of housing. The Vancouver Plan must ensure equity in planning for easily accessible local amenities that enhance quality of life like parks and greenspace, child care, schools, transportation, and people-serving businesses in all parts of the city.
  • Incorporate Schools in planning: The Vancouver Plan must take into account the current capacities of schools and future needs. That also means zoning to increase family-oriented housing density around major amenities including schools that have more spaces for students and setting aside land for anticipated needs.
  • Recognizes unique neighbourhood character. Vancouver is a city of neighbourhoods, with distinct personalities and characteristics. The Vancouver Plan must guide how – rather than if – new housing will be added in ways that enhance the sense of community, identity and liveability

MAXIMIZE CITY ZONING POWERS TO DELIVER THE MOST NEEDED HOUSING

Zoning policies must accelerate development of affordable housing and community amenities. Here’s what that looks like:

  • Increase affordable, non-market housing zoning. Expand pre-zoning for non-profit-owned, supportive, and co-op housing. Use rental-only zoning powers to increase the supply of affordable and market rental housing, and dampen speculation.
  • Diversify housing options. Zone for a wider variety of housing types in all neighbourhoods, including mid-rise apartments and missing middle typologies like rowhomes, townhomes, and infill. 
  • Get more from the market. Increase inclusionary zoning to deliver city-owned affordable housing as a greater proportion of built units and on more types and scales of housing, either on-site or cash in-lieu. 

REDUCE OBSTACLES TO DEVELOPING AFFORDABLE CLIMATE-SMART HOUSING

There are a number of City-controlled regulations and processes that, along with current zoning policies, get in the way of delivering the housing we need now. Greens will modernize and simplify these processes to:

  • Guarantee permit timelines to ensure that builders have clarity in project timelines to reduce costs and delivery times of housing.
  • Implement a simple menu of repeatable building forms. Develop the next generation of Vancouver Specials, for everything from tiny homes to multifamily buildings, to fast-track building permits, reduce costs and building times. 
  • Streamline re-zoning and development permits by making them happen at same time for affordable rental, co-op, supportive, and non-profit-owned housing. Fast-track permits for more affordable construction, including prefab, modular and wood frame construction
  • Legalize new forms of affordable housing. Update the Vancouver Building Bylaw to allow new forms of housing (e.g., co-housing, perimeter housing, single-loaded corridors, fee-simple row housing, and tiny homes). 
  • Support additional dwelling suites and units. Simplify building bylaws, permitting, and review processes to make it easier, faster, and less costly to build, upgrade, and legalize additional dwelling units and secondary suite 
  • Reduce parking requirements. Parking adds significantly to building costs and unaffordability of housing, Greens will remove parking minimums and add parking maximums.

PROTECT  RENTERS’ HOMES, SAFETY, AND INCOME

Vancouver wages on average remain quite low, and the majority of residents in our city rent. We need thoughtful policies to protect affordability and renters in our City. Here’s what that looks like:

  • Protect affordability. Stabilize rents by limiting rent increases for units, not just tenants.
  • Ensure tenant safety. Strengthen and more vigorously enforce the Standards of Maintenance Bylaw so that buildings do not dangerously deteriorate, and the lives and safety of tenants are protected and prioritized.
  • Expand and strengthen the City’s Tenant Relocation and Protection Guidelines. Ensure tenants in market housing buildings purchased by non-profit societies have the same rights as other tenants.
  • Crack down on renovictions. Support and expand the role of the Renter Office to cross-reference building and development permits to monitor and intervene on renovictions and other gaps in the province’s Residential Tenancy Act.
  • Protect tenants in residential hotels. Work with the provincial government to expedite the replacement of Single Room Accommodations (typically older residential hotels) while preventing the displacement of current SRA tenants by up-market conversions.
  • Close empty-homes tax and short-term rental loopholes. Review and refine City policies like the Empty Homes Tax and Short-Term Rental bylaws to require clear data reporting. Remove Empty Homes Tax loopholes that allow landlords to avoid the tax by retaining one tenant in a cleared-out building.  

BETTER LEVERAGE CITY ASSETS TO DELIVER AFFORDABLE HOUSING

With bold direction, the City itself can deliver a range of truly affordable housing. Greens will leverage City land and resources to do the following:

  • Maximize the use of city lands. Use city lands to partner with senior governments, non-profits, and community land trusts to build non-profit, supportive, and co-op housing to meet our affordable housing targets.   
  • Ramp up the City’s development of City-owned housing. Leverage funds from senior government and partner with non-profit agencies to accelerate City-funded, City-built housing on City-owned land. Prioritize affordable rentals and housing co-ops and focus on low-cost, zero-carbon, high-quality modular or prefab wood-frame construction. 
  • Acquire more land for housing using right-of-first-refusal. Purchase more properties to add to the Vancouver Affordable Housing Endowment Fund. Pursue with the province a right-of-first-refusal tool where the City has the first option to buy select lands under the same terms and conditions as an existing third-party offer. 
  • Build housing into City-owned buildings. Co-locate affordable housing in new public buildings including libraries, fire halls and community facilities, but excluding park lands.  
  • Immediately resolve co-op lease uncertainty. Resolve outstanding renewal of land leases for housing co-ops on city-owned lands, quickly and fairly.

TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION FOR HOMELESS AND UNDERHOUSED VANCOUVERITES

Everyone has a right to safe, secure housing with sufficient support. Yet thousands are sleeping rough in our city, either in precarious housing, in shelters, on our streets, or in parks. Here’s what Greens will do at the City-level to address that:

  • Fast-track rapid shelter solutions like tiny home communities on empty lots to provide transitional housing with health supports for people living in tents or unsafe SROs and shelters. This type of intervention has proven successful and is demonstrably safer than living in shelters, SROs, or tents and can provide a successful pathway to permanent and supportive housing. Inexpensive, quick-assembly, comfortable and locking units can be scaled to meet needs as an emergency response.
  • Improve  emergency shelter options. Provide safer, more dignified shelter options across the city responsive to heat and cold weather events and unique needs of residents including seniors, disabled, Indigenous, and 2SLGBTQIA+ people.
  • Ensure adequate wrap-around services and staffing in Supportive Housing Units by making tenanting, staffing and operational agreements a condition of occupancy permits.
  • Ensure everyone has 24 hour access to safe washrooms, drinking water, and showers. Expand facilities to provide access to basic water and sanitation services as they are fundamental human rights.     

ADVOCACY

Homelessness is a crisis that requires all levels of government to do their part. Greens will collaborate with all orders of government, community partners, and the people most affected. Here’s what that will look like:

  • Deliver on Navigation Centres Continue working with provincial agencies on the delivery of a Navigation Centre, a portal to meet people where they are at and according to their needs, as first point of contact and triage for Vancouverites experiencing homelessness. 
  • Push for complex care facilities for the hardest to house. Continue working with provincial agencies on delivery of complex care facilities to support some of the hardest to house with full wrap around services and supports.
  • Secure provincial funding for the City to deal directly with the homelessness crisis. If BC Housing cannot meet the needs on the ground in Vancouver, make the case that they should empower and fund the City to do so. This is already the case in Ontario, where the housing authority has recognized they are ill-equipped to meet local needs to tackle homelessness and instead, provides funding to local governments to develop their own responses and supports.
  • Ensure senior levels of government compensate the City for stepping up. Audit the cost of homelessness on city services in order to make a case for appropriate financial support from senior levels of government.

GREEN ACCOMPLISHMENTS ON HOUSING

In 2018, Vancouver elected three Greens to Council who worked collaboratively across party lines and with city staff to move forward solutions to the housing crisis. Greens have worked hard this term to change our City’s housing policies to better meet the needs of residents. Unfortunately, too much of our important work has been slow to come back to Council or has not been implemented at all. We need more Greens elected to ensure our solutions are implemented in a timely fashion and in a way that best serves the people of Vancouver.