Vancouver’s new city council was sworn into office Monday, November 5 at an invitation-only ceremony held before their first council meeting. But COPE’s lone city councillor, Jean Swanson, had already been hard at work. She served notice of motion a number of days prior to the first meeting on her proposed motion regarding renovictions. Let…
Category: affordable housing
The COPE election victory in context
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — COPE is back! Last Saturday was election day and for the first time since 2011, COPE had candidates elected not just to Vancouver’s city council, where Jean Swanson came in fourth, but also to the city’s school board, with Barb Parrott, and park board, with…
Vote October 20 — don’t let others decide for you!
This coming Saturday, Oct. 20 is municipal election day. I’ve already voted at the advance poll so that I’m free to volunteer for the candidates I’m supporting on election day. Who am I supporting? For me, it was a very easy decision. I voted the entire COPE and GREEN slates. I abstained on the mayoral…
Turn up the taps & cool housing prices more
For many years now housing prices in Vancouver have been moving up at a very fast pace — so fast that most of us have been priced right out of the market. Economists will forever debate the causes of this phenomenon. However, it would appear that at long last relief finally may be here. Provincial…
View cone demolition – another nail in the coffin of affordable housing
Yesterday, Vision Vancouver approved the application for a tower adjacent to BC Place Stadium. The application is from BC Pavilion Corporation or PavCo, the provincial Crown corporation originally created to manage the Expo 86 site. The tower, one of three PavCo is proposing in total for the site, has created a lot of concern given…
Affordable rents: There’s a way, just no will
Over the last number of years, Vision Vancouver has been offering developers significant incentives in the form of waiving development cost levies or DCLs in return for a commitment from the developer to provide purpose-built rental housing. (See my June 29 blog on DCLs.) Unfortunately, this has not helped at all in addressing Vancouver’s housing…
Hurried “chainsaw massacre” of our city’s zoning
I don’t normally read the Vancouver Sun — it’s much too conservative for me. However, I was recently made aware of a great guest editorial by Elizabeth Murphy, a respected urbanist and former member of Vancouver’s planning department. Her op ed ran July 2 and is a must-read. Calling it a “chainsaw massacre”, she does…