“Super stoked” is how Mayor Ken Sim described how he was feeling last Friday after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced $115 million will be provided to Vancouver to help deliver 3,200 units of housing over the next three years.
Sim and Trudeau participated in a news conference Dec. 15 at a rental housing construction site in the 3600-block of Arbutus Street, the same neighbourhood where the mayor once lived with his family.
“This is an incredibly generous $115-million investment from the federal government,” Sim told reporters.
The $115 million is to come from the federal government’s “housing accelerator fund,” a $4-billion program designed to help cities, towns and Indigenous governments unlock new housing supply.
Housing near transit
Trudeau and Sim touched on some of the broader uses of the money, but the following provides more detail, as explained in an information sheet provided by the city’s communications department:
• Allow for high-density development including multiplexes and apartment buildings.
• Help fast-track development processes and build housing near public transit.
• Work to streamline rezoning laws, expand affordable rental programs, “cut red tape” and unlock non-market housing.
• Upgrade the permit system to reduce the time it takes to assess and review site feasibility of development projects.
• Eliminate, simplify and streamline development conditions to reduce review times.
• Standardize zoning districts to speed up processing for buildings up to 25 storeys in residential neighbourhoods such as Broadway apartment areas and new Oakridge municipal town centre.
• Encourage housing off arterial roads in quiet neighbourhoods served by transit.
• Create opportunities for non-market housing citywide, without a rezoning.
Federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser, who also attended the news conference on Arbutus Street, pointed out the site under construction was assisted by a low-cost loan from the federal government.
The property used to be home to six single-family lots.
“Within a couple of years, there's going to be hundreds of people living in these new homes,” he said of the 116-unit rental housing project, which will include 24 below-market homes.
“This is the kind of thing that we can do when we work with the private sector, when we work with other levels of government to actually ensure that we're creating the conditions that will allow us to escape the housing crisis.”
'Vancouver gets to celebrate'
The announcement comes after B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon and the NDP-led government recently introduced multiple pieces of legislation to tackle the province’s housing crisis — a point Kahlon made at the news conference.
The minister praised the federal government for the $115-million investment and said it aligns with initiatives taken by the B.C. government. Kahlon, however, emphasized that more federal dollars are needed in other cities in the province.
“Today, Vancouver gets to celebrate,” he said. “I'm hoping that many, many, many other communities get to celebrate very soon and get the opportunity to see this type of infrastructure in their communities.”
Earlier this year, the provincial government set a target for Vancouver to build 28,900 units over five years. Sim told Glacier Media that “we’re going to focus on what we can control to hit that number.”
“But if we’re in an environment where interest rates are at 10 per cent and builders aren’t building at all, it doesn’t matter how quickly you issue a permit — they’re not going to build,” he said.
