In 1955, when Vancouver was a remote outpost and the region was home to only 650,000 people, architect Arthur Erickson saw a different future.
It was early in Mr. Erickson’s career. He had not yet made his name as one of Canada’s great architects. His Project 56 sketch envisioned several tall buildings on and near the downtown peninsula, curved like parabolas and framed by the North Shore Mountains. It was nothing like what existed at the time. Later in his career, Mr. Erickson talked of the region being one day home to upwards of 10-million people.
His vision has proved in part correct. Tall buildings define Vancouver’s central skyline but steps away from downtown the city morphs into suburban low-density housing and sprawls an hour east through the Fraser Valley. The region’s population is about 3-million.
This is by design. There was a building boom in the 1970s, across Canada, but it was followed by a reactionary anti-growth movement that focused on restricting the supply of new housing.
That’s started to change, as high housing prices and too few rental homes have finally pushed some political leaders to allow for new density, following years of debate. It’s a good start – but it’s just a start, with prices to buy still stratospheric and rental vacancy near zero.
As Canada embarks on a generational change, some new policies are already a success – and some old policies continue to undermine the goal of building a lot of new housing. There’s political agreement on the left and right, from Liberals to Conservatives, but in these first years of change it’s crucial to keep pushing forward, rather than accept a few initial adjustments as all that’s needed. The goal is abundant housing, where people can afford to move to Vancouver, Toronto and other large cities, rather than be forced by high costs and lack of housing to move away.
In Vancouver, one new policy scoring early success is 2022’s Broadway Plan. It allows for ample new density near downtown along the line of a subway set to open in 2027. The plan has drawn proposals for more than 50 rental towers, in a city desperate for new rental homes and where more than half of people rent. Among the latest proposals is a project with two towers that includes 446 rental homes, three blocks from a subway stop. Forty per cent of the units will be two- and three-bedrooms, and 20 per cent will be priced below market rates.
Vancouver isn’t perfect. City council remains too cautious on housing density in many regards – but allowing some new development has spurred housing starts in B.C. to record levels, even amid high interest rates. It shows how old rules had prevented builders from responding to demand. The foundation for further growth has been put in place by country-leading legislation last year from the provincial B.C. NDP.
Now consider Ontario, which like B.C. faces the same housing problems. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has talked about building a lot of housing, yet B.C. on a per-capita basis builds much more. Housing starts in B.C. over the past two years are 50-per-cent higher than in Ontario.
This brings us to old rules that hold housing back, starting with development charges. That’s a political euphemism for taxing new homes. Cities across the country levy such taxes, Vancouver included, but look at Toronto, where they are soaring. As of June 6, a new two-bedroom apartment for purchase includes $80,690 of development charges. Two years ago, as city council approved large increases, it was $55,012. Ten years ago, it was $17,293.
Such taxes became popular in the 1970s to slow new housing. Governments, at all levels, have to figure out how to pay for maintaining, upgrading and building infrastructure and other services, without pinning so much of it on new homes.
As the rules change, the culture must change too. At Villiers Island near downtown Toronto, the city is planning far too little housing. There’s a ready template of how to do it better: Wellington Basin in Montreal.
What’s necessary is a can-do – not a can’t-do – attitude. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. in May estimated home construction could increase by two-thirds to record levels from current numbers.
New rules to accommodate such building are being put in place in some jurisdictions – and they’re working. But the old rules still hinder housing. The work of change is only beginning.