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A lack of sun down here in Jamaica, and a burning desire to throw out some points regarding lone NPA Councillor Suzanne Anton’s piece in the Vancouver Sun yesterday, has prompted this post.

As reported in an article in the Vancouver Sun last month, there has been no rental housing built in the West End for at least a decade.

There is a need for 5,500 new rental housing units per year over the next five years in metro Vancouver, according to a report written by  Lorraine Copas , formerly of CMHC and now a Senior Housing Planner with Metro Vancouver. That report was distributed to all of Metro Vancouver’s member municipalities last spring to initiate strategies to create more rental housing stock.

On April 23, 2008, the Vancouver City Planning Commission established a Market Rental Housing Committee (which, as it happens, Mike Klassen of City Caucus was a member of) to “develop policies to increase the supply of market rental housing inVancouver.” In October 2008, that committee released a report that found the rental apartment vacancy rates are the lowest since 1997, and more specifically, that “the West End has the most acute rental housing vacancy rate of 0.2%.”  It also stated that “the city urgently needs to devise and implement policies which do not exclusively depend on the policies and programs of provincial and federal governments” and that “the city can initiate policies within its own structure to encourage the housing market to build more rental housing.”

The report also talks about another 100,000 people in Vancouver by 2025, with “the only way to accommodate another 100,000 people is to increase density” through “a sustainable and sensitive manner, keeping Vancouver “clean, green and livable” with a high level of community amenities and services.  None of this will come easily or cheaply, demanding from all of us (council, planners and citizens) creative thinking, long term focus, green designs and adaptable spaces and structures.”

However, here is two key findings that I want to highlight from that report:

“If the city could encourage the supply of market rental housing, there will not only be relief to the very tight vacancy rates but also likely some relief to the high rents.”

“Supplying market rental housing should be considered as a “public benefit”. The basic thrust of our recommendations is that we need to pro-actively devise new approaches to creating the supply of market rental housing in the city. In this context, we consider “rental housing as a public amenity”.

So everyone seems to see the benefit of increasing rental housing stock in Vancouver – everyone, that is, except for Suzanne Anton, that is.  The fact is, the STIR program is on track to produce at least 400 units and perhaps as many as 1,700 by the end of 2010. All of these proposed units would be around for the life of the host building, or 60 years – whichever is longer.

Question the political motivation behind yesterday’s piece by Anton?  Well consider this:

In the piece, Anton speaks about how the city could have used the $4.7 million for the west end development “to invest in public projects that would benefit everyone,” citing the Aquatic Centre or a gay and lesbian centre as examples.  But just last month, she was also speaking about putting the money towards “saving the Stanley Park petting zoo,” which at the time was the political barn burner (translation: the NPA’s latest hope of actually resonating) for the season.

In closing, I’d like to end off with a quote from Terry Lavender, a long-time West End renter, and a former member of the board of the Mole Hill Community Housing Society for seven years:

“No thank you, Ms. Anton. West Enders need rental housing more than a petting zoo.“

Lavender, by the way, is an opponent of the highrise development in the west end as well, but for reasons having to do with proper planning rather than questioning the need for such rental units.

That’s OK Suzanne.  Eventually, one of the attacks you throw against the wall might just stick.  Yesterday’s, however, wasn’t it.