Are you or your children renters, or will they be soon? Are other loved ones or friends struggling to stay in Vancouver? This apartment building is for you! It will have 161 secured rental homes, including 20% (by floor area) reserved permanently for moderate incomes earning between $30,000 and $80,000.

TL;DR: This building will improve affordability in Vancouver, as well as access to jobs and public transit. It is at risk because people in wealthy neighbourhoods are very organized in their opposition to new buildings, especially buildings that are larger (i.e. include more homes), and several city councillors have recently started trying to delay most housing initiatives. To support, speak at the public hearing this Tuesday, October 27th, and/or write in via the City's online comment form. Don’t know what to say? Here's the basics, read on for more:

Subject: 3701-3743 West Broadway

Position: Support

Comments: Whatever you like, the more specific & personal the better! It can be as simple as "We need much more rental in West Point Grey / near UBC / in this City. The housing crisis is now; this project must be approved and not delayed" Read below to find out some of the reasons this is a great proposal that should be replicated many times over.

Why Vancouver needs these apartments and many more like it:

1. Centrally Located - By public transit, these homes will be 30 minutes to UBC and 30 minutes right to Waterfront Station. By bike, they are 15 minutes to UBC, 30 minutes to Waterfront Station downtown.

2. Zero Displacement - Wealthy, low-density neighbourhoods need to stop pushing people out through no growth or slow growth planning policies. It's socially bad, forces people in less affluent neighbourhoods to compete with West Point Grey's wealthy children for housing, and makes thousands of people have longer commutes. This proposal is exactly where we should be building much more housing, and this building will not displace any current tenants!

WPG has half the population density of the rest of Vancouver.

WPG is one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in the city, but far too many people can't afford the rent.

3. Moderate Income Homes - While building more market rental homes helps to increase affordability through increased supply, these moderate income homes will help keep people in their neighbourhood who can't afford market rents today (and long into the future). To meet the targets set out in the Housing Vancouver Strategy, the City needs to approve about 573 moderate income homes per year over the next 8 years, roughly 19 buildings like this per year. The need for "missing middle" housing is great, and City Council needs to be pushed to do much more much faster. This project is a step in the right direction.

And What You Can Do About It Right Now 

Are you a renter? Are your children renters (or will they be soon)? Are other loved ones or friends you’d like to be able to stay in Vancouver renters? Great, this apartment building is for you! 

TL;DR: This building will improve affordability in Vancouver, as well as access to jobs and public transit. To support, speak at the public hearing this Thursday, July 9th, and write in to [email protected]. Don’t know what to say?

- Use our handy Letter Generator to get you started.

You have probably received a postcard from the City notifying you about a public hearing, or perhaps have read a news story about one. But chances are you have never been to one. And that is a problem. The process that shapes our city and decides where people can and can't live does not represent the people of Vancouver.

What is a public hearing? Every city in BC has a set of bylaws, known as zoning, controlling what can and cannot be built on every lot in the city. If you ever wondered why 75% of land in Vancouver has expensive detached houses, rather than more affordable apartments and condos, zoning is the answer. Under provincial law, every time a city wants to change zoning, called a rezoning, the city council has to hold a public hearing, for members of the public to have their say.

That may sound good in theory, but in practice it is an ineffective, inequitable and broken way of deciding important questions of who gets to build and live where.

A Kerrisdale church building below-market rentals faces fierce opposition from incumbent homeowners who are organizing to prevent new housing in a wealthy neighbourhood.  Be sure to check out the open house at the Ryerson Memorial Centre in Kerrisdale between 5 and 8 PM on February 27 to make sure they aren't the only voices in the room!

Ryerson United Church, like many aging churches, seeks to make better use of their property and provide more affordable housing, and have partnered with developers to build: