What Vancouver Parties Are Promising on Housing

In Vancouver, there is no bigger issue than housing. The city’s extremely unaffordable rents and home prices are tied to pretty much every other issue, from homelessness to public safety to the local economy.

Here’s a final rundown of what the parties have rolled out on housing over the course of the Vancouver election campaign — including some last-minute promises announced in the past few weeks.

Forward Together; Kennedy Stewart running to stay mayor

• Approve 220,000 housing units over the next 10 years, an amount that triples current targets.
• Protect renters from demovictions by requiring developers to rehouse displaced tenants during construction of a new building, then allow tenants to return to a new unit at the same rent they were paying before.
• Add permanent vacancy control — meaning rent increases are capped when a tenant moves out and a new renter moves in — to more new rental units.
• Densify single-family home lots by allowing up to six strata units on each lot.

In interviews, Stewart has stressed the importance of pre-zoning areas of the city to speed up building, and has urged voters to elect the six councillors running alongside him to ensure he has a majority council to speed up the approval of new housing.

Read the party’s full platform.

ABC Vancouver; Ken Sim running for mayor

• Speed up construction permits. The party has set a target of three days for a home renovation, three weeks for a new single-family home or town house, and three months for lowrise multi-family buildings where existing zoning is in place. For more complicated high-density projects, the party is targeting a process that would take one year instead of the current six year average.
• Double the number of co-op housing over the next four years.
• Shift supportive housing strategy to emphasize quality instead of quantity.

In interviews, Sim has been short on detail when asked exactly how he will shorten permit time, but has emphasized he has the management skills to reform the permitting system because of his experience running two businesses.

Read the party’s full platform.

TEAM for a Livable Vancouver; Colleen Hardwick running for mayor

• Roll back the Vancouver Plan and the Broadway Plan, and previous council decisions that set the stage for higher-density development in parts of the city.
• Review housing and population data to determine whether Vancouver actually needs the amount of housing currently planned.
• Spend $500 million to invest in 2,000 new units of co-op housing on city-owned land.
• Implement vacancy control across the city. Vacancy control limits rent increases between tenancies, meaning landlords cannot raise rents by an unlimited amount when a tenant moves out.

In interviews, Hardwick has voiced her skepticism that denser development can solve Vancouver’s housing woes, and has said her party’s policies would remove the incentive to tear down older apartment buildings to build higher-density buildings.

Read the party’s full platform.

Progress Vancouver; Mark Marissen running for mayor

• Allow four-storey condo buildings and six-storey rental buildings everywhere in the city, including single-family home neighbourhoods.
• Introduce a luxury homes surtax on the top one per cent of properties.
• Create two new city housing agencies, one focused on for-profit housing and one focused on non-market housing.
• Allow tenants the right to return when rental buildings are renovated, at rents 20 per cent below market.

In interviews, Marissen has said he wants the population of the city to grow to support a strong local economy.

Read the party’s full platform.

Non-Partisan Association; Fred Harding running for mayor

• Reform the city permitting process to speed up building.
• Incentivize private sector to build housing.
• Introduce flat-rate community amenity contributions and lower the CAC rate for rental buildings.

In interviews, Harding has emphasized that lack of housing supply is the root cause of Vancouver’s housing unaffordability crisis.

Read the party’s full platform.

OneCity, Christine Boyle incumbent councillor

• Allow four-storey condo buildings and six-storey rental buildings everywhere in the city, including single-family home neighbourhoods.
• Allow social housing (including non-profit, co-ops and mixed income) to be built throughout the city and at higher density.
• Ask province to allow city to enact a land value tax to capture rising land prices.
• Ask the provincial government to implement vacancy control and legislation to legally recognize tenants’ unions.

Read the party’s full platform.

COPE; Jean Swanson incumbent councillor

• Implement a “mansion tax” of one or two per cent on high-value homes.
• Implement vacancy control across the city. Vacancy control limits rent increases between tenancies, meaning landlords cannot raise rents by an unlimited amount when a tenant moves out.
• Create a rental housing register to help implement vacancy control and track which units are vacant or underutilized.
• Create a legal framework to recognize tenants’ unions.

Read the party’s full platform.

Green Party of Vancouver; Pete Fry, Adriane Carr, Michael Wiebe incumbent councillors

• Tie affordability to renter income (30 per cent of median renter household income) instead of market rents.
• Implement vacancy control across the city. Vacancy control limits rent increases between tenancies, meaning landlords cannot raise rents by an unlimited amount when a tenant moves out.
• Protect renters from demovictions by allowing tenants to return to a new unit at the same rent they were paying before.
• Streamline permitting process to speed up housing construction.
• Acquire more city-owned land for housing, and include affordable housing in new developments of libraries, fire halls and other community buildings (but excluding park lands).

Read the party’s full platform.

Vision Vancouver, no incumbent councillors

• Open up neighbourhoods to low and mid-rise development through citywide zoning.
• Remove public hearing requirements for all below-market housing projects.
• Create a new city agency to aid in building affordable housing on city-owned land.
• Streamline permitting delays.

Read the party’s full platform.

Vote Socialist, no incumbent councillors

• Guarantee same or lower rent to renters displaced by Broadway project.
• Guarantee right of tenants to collectively bargain and engage in rent strikes.
• Give government the power to seize SROs, improve conditions under public ownership.
• Protect affordable rental stock by ending evictions of any residents living in units that cost less than 80 per cent of market rates, unless immediately provided with housing of the same or better rental price, quality and square footage in perpetuity, indexed to inflation.

Read the party’s full platform.