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1. Squamish Nation’s bold housing plans put Vancouver City Hall to shame

   Appeared in the Globe and Mail, November 7, 2019 What happens when you remove onerous regulations that prevent new homes from getting built where they’re needed most? Just ask the Squamish Nation, which recently doubled the size of a planned residential ...

2. B.C. government ‘task force’ misses key contributor to rental woes

   The Horgan government’s “ Rental Housing Task Force ” set up in the spring to “advise on how to improve security and fairness for renters and rental housing providers” throughout British Columbia recently released its findings and ...

3. Rather than help all renters, B.C. government picks a lucky few

   The Horgan government recently announced plans to spend $492 million on the provision of 4,900 subsidized rental units in British Columbia over the next two to three years. There’s a clear need for units with below-market rents, and this ...

4. Municipal spending on the rise across Metro Vancouver

   Municipalities play an essential role in the lives of Canadians. As the closest level of government to citizens, they are often the most visible—from snowplows to police patrols. It’s this visibility, and the central role these services ...

5. Developer fees rising in Metro Vancouver

   A recent Fraser Institute study compared 17 of Metro Vancouver’s 21 municipalities on spending, revenue and debt from 2007 to 2016, underscoring the changing makeup of municipal revenues in the region. As shown in the chart below, ...

6. Regulating short-term rentals in Vancouver—a Band-Aid that ignores key driver of rental crunch

   Vancouver City Council recently voted to ban the listing of secondary residences on short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb. The hope is that this will make more units available for long-term renters. With a vacancy rate below 1 per ...

7. Trudeau government’s new housing benefit seems to ignore regional differences

   As part of its National Housing Strategy, the Trudeau government announced today that it will directly subsidize low-income households with an average of $2,500 annually for housing costs. Details are pending, but the logic is simple: if ...

8. Dear Montreal, don’t lose your housing advantage

   In 2016, average rents in Montreal were $835 a month compared to $1,242 in Toronto and just under $1,300 in Vancouver. ...

9. Amazon HQ2—you can grow Vancouver’s economy without making housing less affordable

   The City of Vancouver is keen to land Amazon’s “HQ2”—a second North American headquarters, which the company claims will house tens of thousands of new jobs and add billions of dollars to the local economy. Indeed, HQ2 aligns with the ...

10. Vancouver plan to boost housing supply ignores city hall red tape

    The City of Vancouver recently announced a plan to enable the construction of 72,000 new housing units in over the next 10 years. It’s encouraging to hear city hall pivot away from measures targeting housing demand—such as its tax on ...