Vancouver mayor promises 200,000+ homes over 10 years if re-elected, opponents slam proposal
Vancouver’s mayor has released his party’s plan to help create more homes if re-elected, which quickly came under fire from political opponents also vying for seats at city hall this fall.
Forward Together mayoral candidate Kennedy Stewart promised Tuesday to help create 220,000 new homes in the city over the next decade, including 140,000 market and below market rental units, social housing, and co-ops.
“Everybody should be able to live in every part of the city,” he said. “We know that houses can’t get built unless they’re approved, so that is the main job that we’re doing at the city. By increasing approvals, we’re enabling the construction. So that is why we also want to modernize the permitting process to get things done faster.”
The party’s housing platform also includes approving 40,000 new “ground-oriented homes for purchase by the middle class” and 40,000 full market condos or townhomes over 10 years.
Forward Together also plans to add permanent vacancy controls to many new rental units, make the public hearing process more efficient, and maintain the empty homes tax at a minimum of five per cent.
'HE'S HAD FOUR YEARS'
Other City Hall hopefuls are taking aim at the incumbent mayor's housing promises. Council candidate Peter Meiszner’s party ABC Vancouver said in a news release on Tuesday it intends to release its housing plan soon.
“He’s had four years to help create more housing in Vancouver and from my perspective it’s been a failure,” Meiszner said of Stewart and Forward Together's plan.
“We’re going to make it easier to build housing. Right now, it takes about six years for a high rise project to be approved and that’s one of many reasons why we have a housing crunch here in Vancouver."
'SIMPLY UNBELIEVABLE'
Council candidate Bill Tieleman with TEAM for a Livable Vancouver said what is needed is more affordable housing.
“Most of this is market condos and market rentals -- and the market is sky high,” he said of the proposal.
“Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s plan is actually simply unbelievable. There is no way that the city is going to get to 22,000 housing units per year, and we already have almost 100,000 units in the pipeline.”
Director of Simon Fraser University’s city program Andy Yan said it’s important to look at the details of party promises regarding housing, including not only how many new units are being discussed, but the type of housing and where it’s located.
“Housing policy is made up of three things: housing supply, housing demand and finance,” he said. “What will they focus on? Will they have a balance between these three issues…but then also pragmatic towards really what municipal governments can do and what they can’t do.”
General voting day for the 2022 municipal election is in just over a month, on Oct. 15th.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.