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1. City of Vancouver (finally) acknowledges importance of housing supply

   The City of Vancouver recently unveiled its new 10-year housing strategy. Chief among its commitments is to see 72,000 new homes in the city by 2028, including an important boost in the rental stock, which has suffered from vacancy rates ...

2. How the next Calgary City Council can boost the housing supply and increase affordability

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald, October 28, 2017 Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi won a third term earlier this month, giving him four more years to address the city’s most pressing issues—including housing. Many Calgarians worry about affordability as the ...

3. Ontario housing measures—short-term gain for long-term pain?

   Appeared in the Toronto Sun, August 27, 2017 The Wynne government this summer introduced a raft of measures aimed at reining in the price of buying or renting a home in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). As laudable as this goal may be, the government’s ...

4. Rent control won’t solve Toronto’s rental affordability problem

   Appeared in the Toronto Sun, April 17, 2017 Amid media reports of steep rent increases in Toronto, Premier Kathleen Wynne has put rent control—government regulation that controls the amounts charged for rental housing—back on the table. It’s an odd move ...

5. When reviewing the OMB, Queen’s Park should not lose sight of housing affordability

   Appeared in the Toronto Sun, March 13, 2017 The Ontario government is reviewing the role played by the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), an independent tribunal that hears cases relating to land-use policies. While this may seem like a minor bureaucratic ...

6. Red tape in Calgary stifling housing supply as home prices soar

   Average house prices up almost 140 per cent in Calgary and more than 160 per cent in Edmonton. ...

7. White House urges deregulation to boost housing supply—Canadian policymakers should take note

   Housing availability and affordability isn’t just an issue in Canada. It’s also a concern in the United States, where the White House recently released a so-called Housing Development Toolkit aimed at informing municipalities on how to ...

8. Palo Alto—a cautionary tale for Vancouver

   Appeared in the Vancouver Sun, September 2, 2016 Palo Alto, California, home to high-tech giants including Facebook and Tesla, made the news recently when planning commissioner Kate Downing resigned and announced her family’s plan to move to another city, ...

9. To reduce housing costs in Toronto, cut red tape around new construction

   Appeared in the Toronto Sun, August 3, 2016 Last week, the provincial government in British Columbia announced it would impose an additional 15 per cent tax on foreign homebuyers in Greater Vancouver. The goal is to slow the runaway growth of housing ...

10. Red tape drives Canada’s housing affordability woes—not foreign buyers

    Appeared in the Globe and Mail, July 28, 2016 Foreign nationals purchasing homes in Metro Vancouver and the Greater Toronto Area is a topic that continues to make national headlines, especially as housing prices rise. This came to a head recently when B.C ...