Vancouver Mayor says affordability crisis shouldn’t be “generalized”

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The pundits have it wrong when it comes to Vancouver’s affordability crisis.

So says Mayor Gregor Robertson, who has penned his thoughts on our real estate market in a prominent national magazine.

Robertson has written an op-ed piece for The Walrus, saying it is wrong to reduce one the city’s toughest challenges to a “series of sweeping generalizations.”

It is a response to a feature article claiming Vancouver’s affordability problems are simply the result, as Robertson puts it, of buyers from China swallowing up real estate as politicians ignore it, creating “a hollow, cultureless city devoid of millennials and young families.”

Robertson refutes that, saying global capital is a major factor but not the only factor. He points to condominium-centric planning decisions in the 1990s limiting choices for today’s buyers and leaving a lack of rental apartments for low and middle-income earners.

The mayor also deflects much of the responsibility to the provincial government, saying the city can’t control who buys properties and that Victoria could impose luxury or speculation taxes to limit the commodification of housing.

But one local housing expert believes Robertson is dodging some of the issues.

“Where I think the mayor misses the point is in putting all the blame for how things are on everybody else,” says Tsur Sommerville, a professor with UBC’s Sauder School of Business.

“He’s going to blame the province and the feds for who gets into the country and then the feds for not paying enough for affordable housing. The city of Vancouver could be a lot more agressive in having a speedy supply of housing for the market,” he tells NEWS 1130. “But that would mean a city with a lot more condos.”

Sommerville says it takes an extremely long period of time to get housing approved and built in Vancouver and local community groups have “considerable power” in objecting to development in their neighbourhoods, undermining city objectives.

“The city is in control of land use zoning and if there was more lax zoning, there would be more townhouses and condos in the city. It still wouldn’t be super-affordable and the single-family residences still here would be really, really expensive, but you’d have a larger, more active, more diverse city in many ways,” argues Sommerville.