Attract foreign buyers, respect renters and up density, says new report

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Show renters some love, embrace foreign buyers and try to increase density. Those are some of the key ideas being brought forward by a group trying to tackle the housing affordability problem in Metro Vancouver.

‘Generation Squeeze,’ is a group made up of mayors, homebuilders, city planners, developers and people living through the day-to-day struggles in the housing market.

UBC professor and the group’s founder, Dr. Paul Kershaw, says it starts with a self-realization many of us simply won’t ever be able to buy a single detached home in the region, then bridging the gap between renters and property owners.

“Renters are as good neighbours as are home owners,” explains Kershaw. “We need to revise our policy principles accordingly into subsidies we provide these days are disproportionately towards owners and we need to help renters have equal subsidies as well.”

The group is also pushing for increasing density in the region, which requires a generational shift in attitudes and beliefs. “We’re going to have to figure out how to live in smaller spaces with balconies not yards. And simultaneously there’s going to be a responsibility to adapt among an older population saying, ‘We need to welcome increased density in the neighbourhoods where we raised our kids.'”

The province implemented a 15 per cent foreign buyers tax last summer that has since allowed the once hot market to cool off over the last six months. Kershaw thinks it’s time to stop looking at foreign investment money as a bad thing, and examine ways to embrace it. “We don’t want those investors to buy single detached homes or condos that they leave empty, but we could try and attract their money into investing in more rental homes, in more below market housing.”

A link to view the full report can be found here.

 

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