Office towers, condos and apartment buildings are seen in downtown and the West End of Vancouver, on Jan. 19, 2023.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Vancouver city planners are proposing that all social- and supportive-housing projects up to 18 stories be automatically approved without having to go through rezoning or public hearings, an idea that is likely to generate opposition from residents with concerns about accommodating people with mental-health and addictions issues in their neighbourhoods.
But housing planners Dan Harrison and Jessie Singer say the policy, set to be released Wednesday, is a core principle of the new Vancouver Plan to make housing equitable and to ensure affordable housing is available throughout the city.
“This comes from a belief that non-market housing belongs everywhere,” Ms. Singer said in a media briefing, adding that the city’s villages and neighbourhood centres would be prime locations for that purpose.
Mr. Harrison said it typically costs a non-profit housing group $500,000 to go through the year-long rezoning process, money that could be better spent on keeping rents low.
Both planners said that, with all the challenges facing new construction these days, from high financing and construction costs to complicated approvals for subsidies, housing groups need all the help they can get.
“We want to set up Vancouver non-profits to have that competitive edge,” said Ms. Singer, adding that the proposal is a “big move” on the part of the city and one that her team hopes will lead the way for other Canadian cities.
Vancouver’s housing targets, first set out in 2017 and amended a couple of times since then, has shown in every report since that the city is not creating enough lower-income housing to accommodate the segment of the population that needs it.
Such projects are defined in two ways, the first of which is social housing. They contain a mix of tenants ranging from those paying welfare-shelter rates to people paying close to market rents, ideally one-third at deep subsidy, one-third with a mid-range, shallow subsidy, and one-third with no subsidy.
The other kind, supportive housing, is for tenants with a mix of more serious issues with physical or mental health, drug or alcohol use, or behavioural issues who are provided with access to doctors, counselling, harm-reduction strategies, life-skills classes and other kinds of back-up.
The latest proposal will have to be voted on by council and go through a rezoning and public-hearing process in order to create the system of blanket approvals. There are public meetings planned throughout October for people to give feedback on the idea.
The plan is set to generate a lot of debate, given how several recent proposals for supportive-housing have turned into pitched battles in the neighbourhoods where they are proposed.
An entire new community group formed in the west-side Kitsilano neighbourhood more than two years ago to oppose a 13-storey, 129-unit social- and supportive-housing building at Arbutus and Broadway planned by B.C.’s provincial housing agency. That resident group, which mounted a legal challenge that ultimately failed, is still active.
A proposal for a similar building on Vancouver’s east side around the same time also generated some vitriolic opposition, but little was heard from opponents once it was approved.
Mr. Harrison said there’s no doubt that some people will not like the idea of removing the rezoning/public hearing part of the approvals process.
“I expect to hear concerns. That’s why we’re doing the engagement,” he said. But he noted that thousands of people who came out to give their thoughts on the Vancouver Plan several years ago were largely in favour of enabling affordable housing in all city neighbourhoods.
Mr. Harrison and Ms. Singer said that the most likely sites for the first proposals would be properties that already have low-rise social-housing on them and where many more people could be accommodated in a larger building. Most would likely be social-housing buildings rather than supportive-housing buildings, they said.
Even without a public hearing, residents and others still get a chance to weigh in on any proposal during the development-permit stage.