Vancouver City Council is considering some changes to the city's policies for new rental housing. More new apartments are desperately needed to improve availability and stop rents for existing apartments from spiraling upwards. Your voice is needed to make sure these policies get approved!

What You Can Do

1. Attend an Open House/Information Session to give City staff your feedback (see dates and locations below). Tell them that the incentives don't go far enough, e.g. 6-storey apartments should be allowed anywhere within 400m of schools, parks, commercial/transit nodes
   
   
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   From https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/em-dash.html
   © 2020 thepunctuationguide.com
   —not just near the busiest, most-polluted streets—and this should be pre-zoned with less parking.
2. Share our Facebook event on your timeline/Instagram/Twitter. Let your friends know which open house you're attending!
3. Sign up for our mailing list to stay informed of progress. Just fill out the form on this page and click "Join".
4. Donate to help us reach more people. Even $5 allows us to boost an event for a day.

What's Being Considered

There are several policy changes under consideration, but a key one is that the city will allow apartment buildings off of major streets for the first time, as long as they are within 400m of parks, schools, or commercial nodes. But there are some big limitations:

1. Apartments off major streets will be limited to only 4 storeys. This makes it very difficult for apartments to compete with luxury detached houses.
2. Apartments will only be allowed where the entire block is within 150m of a major street.
3. Underground parking requirements are expensive and create the need for multiple side-by-side lots to be combined in a "land assembly", which substantially raises the cost of land for apartments (but not for McMansions).
4. Anywhere with a recent community plan or one in progress—which includes all areas near downtown and the Canada Line—are NOT included in these policies at all.
5. This is not being done as "pre-zoning"; individual projects will have to apply for a lengthy, expensive and risky rezoning process that ultimately raises the cost of housing for everyone.

When you add up all these restrictions, not much housing may actually get built. And that's not good, because Vancouver Council is 48% behind on the 10 year housing target for purpose-built rental. Council needs to approve apartments 2x faster than the pace of the last 2 years just to avoid falling further behind, and make up for the current shortfall on top of that.

Open House Dates and Locations:

Tuesday, March 3, 4pm to 7pm 
Killarney Community Centre, 6260 Killarney St   Add to calendar

Thursday, March 5, 5pm to 7pm 
Dunbar Community Centre, 4747 Dunbar St   Add to calendar

Monday, March 9, 4pm to 7pm 
CityLab, 511 W Broadway   Add to calendar

Tuesday, March 10, 4pm to 7pm 
Hastings Community Centre, 3096 East Hastings St   Add to calendar

Wednesday, March 11, 4pm to 7pm 
Kitsilano Neighbourhood House, 2305 West 7th Ave   Add to calendar

Thursday, March 12, 4pm to 7pm 
Polish Hall, 4015 Fraser St   Add to calendar

Tuesday, March 17, 4pm to 6:30pm 
Sunset Community Centre, 6810 Main St   Add to calendar

You can read more about these "Rental Incentive" policies at the City's web page.