An Alternative Approach to Affordability
“What’s the most fundamental issue facing BC and Vancouver today?” our nominal chair asked. “Let’s go around the (Zoom) table.”
It was near the end of our weekly civic affairs Zoom happy hour…and who thought those words would ever appear together in the 21st century? The chair liked to enliven events with the occasional zinger.
There was a brief pause while folks gathered their thoughts.
“Transportation issues, everything from rapid transit to bike/car/pedestrian conflict.” Our thoughtful transportation member jumped in with focused assuredness.
“Drugs, the opioid crisis and homelessness,” added a member involved in those thankless areas.
“Poor land use and planning,” chimed in our self-described urban planning wonk.
“Climate change and action.” Several nodded at this one.
“Better schools, daycare, supports for families and seniors.” That was a handful.
“Business support at all levels, including for neighbourhoods.” From the broad (climate) to the local, we were getting it all out there.
Meanwhile, I’d been thinking. I like to make things as simple as I can—that way I might begin to understand them.
“It’s all about affordability.” I like alliteration, three A’s appealed to me. There was a pause, then several spoke up with the garbledness that Zoom sometimes creates.
“Yes, affordability and livability; and walk/bike neighbourhoods; and viable local business; and the 10-minute walkable city.” I let the buzz die down.
“To repeat,” I continued, “It’s all about affordability. All those other elements are important, but without affordability they won’t exist in the long run, can’t be added, mitigated or maintained. I was talking with a younger person recently who I thought was passionate about climate change, until she interjected into our conversation, Climate change doesn’t matter if I can’t make rent! That took me aback and got me thinking outside my privileged boomer comfort.”
I was building up a head of steam now. “Does anybody here not know at least one friend or family, son, daughter or sibling who has been driven out of Vancouver by its unaffordability?” Quiet Zoom nods. “And it’s happening all across the country, accelerated by COVID-19—people moving from big cities to suburbs; suburbs to smaller cities and towns; smaller centres to rural enclaves. It’s one thing if people are choosing to move away for career or lifestyle reasons, quite another if they are forced to because they can’t afford to stay. There’s also a significant knock-on effect, where this diaspora then makes homes more expensive to buy or rent for existing residents of smaller centres.”
“That’s why I say it’s all about affordability. If we don’t solve that, we solve nothing else of lasting consequence.”
One of my Zoom colleagues took the bait: “So how do we solve it? All levels of government claim to be tackling it. How are they doing and how do you think we can do better?”
“I think we can start by analyzing some very specific political moves that have made things worse while claiming to make them better:”
How did we get here?
“Instead of finger-pointing, let’s instead identify a small number of (the many) provincial and local governmental policies that have gradually destroyed affordability—I think they may be key to turning the affordability ship around.” Then I listed them:
· Irrational Residential Assessment: This has evolved as BC Assessment has valued properties according to “highest and best use” rather than the historic “what we paid and how much we’ve fixed it up.” Historically, a BC single-family home might be slowly valued upwards as we renovated, added to and otherwise improved a property. Now, if enough homes on the block sell for ridiculous prices, then our home is also valued sky-high, with taxes to follow.
· Even More Irrational Commercial Assessment: This comes from the same BC Assessment “highest and best use” concept. Its results are way more dramatic for that one-storey mom and pop convenience store at the end of the block. If current zoning allows for three storeys of housing atop the store, then mom and pop are taxed for three storeys of future development above—or five, 11 or more storeys based on recent rezonings.
· Land Inflation: This has evolved from what was first a commercial issue to a residential one. When a property is rezoned to, say, 12 storeys, then all the surrounding properties become more valuable, both for tax and future residential sale purposes. BC Assessment and the city lead the way by building potential future “land lift,” as it is innocently called, into all neighbouring properties.
· Climate Emergency: These initiatives aim to make Vancouver the “greenest city on the planet.” Even though Vancouver’s contribution to global climate change is miniscule, massive additional “green” construction costs are added to every type of new home and many additions, renovations and upgrades. These costs are passed on to future owners and renters.
· The Cost of Permitting: Layers of complexity, hence delay, hence additional fee and interest costs add an estimated $2,000 per square meter (so $100,000 for a small studio) to building in the city where it easily takes a year to get permission for a fully compliant laneway home, more than two years for a simple infill project, and three years or more for a downtown office building fully compliant with its zoning, etc.”
“There are many other policies that chip away at affordability. In a recent report to City Council, the Planning Department admitted many of its own policies governing development are contradictory, sometimes completely absent.”
A Modest Proposal
“So Brian,” interrupted the chair, “you talk about simple solutions to what appear to be complex problems. What have you got for us?”
I responded. “Pretty much every politician at every level, as well as the staff who serve them (not us, them), develop policy for just a few reasons: to raise tax monies to fund favoured initiatives; simple bureaucratic empire building; or to redistribute existing tax monies to those initiatives or empires. Most policies are presented as brilliant, standalone epiphanies to be funded (or defunded) in vague ways. One need look no further than the current federal election campaigns to see this scatter gun approach in action.” I took the several Zoom nods as license to continue.
“Being the simple person you identified,” I smiled, “I think there might be value in evaluating both existing and proposed policies according to a triage of three cascading affordability criteria, what I call the Affordable A’s. I know, I know, I’ve used A’s already!
“ACCOMMODATION affordability is essential for both our homes and our work. If we don’t aim to make where we live and where we work more affordable, including the services livable neighbourhoods need, then we will fail. And if we set aside accommodation affordability in favour of amenities or our societal wish lists, then we have lost right out of the gate because we can’t afford to live near the amenities, nor aspire to better.
“AMENITY affordability includes what’s free, what’s cheap and what’s more expensive but worth it. Our parks, beaches, mountains, water and the access to them and views of them are free (well, some are included in our basic taxes)—any proposal that taxes them or worse, removes them from our access, is to be vigorously resisted.
“ASPIRATIONAL affordability is what remains to consider after we have an affordable place to live in an affordable neighbourhood. We can get to climate change, reconciliation, inclusiveness, green construction, etc. But they’ll need to wait until Accommodation and Amenity affordability are a bit further along.”
“But,” our urban planning wonk interjected, “how do the Three A’s help us evaluate policy proposals that may be quite complex?”
“If you agree,” I responded, “to a triage approach where we first need affordable accommodation, then affordable amenities, finally the ability to aspire to more, then we have a basis for detailed policy evaluation. My occasionally ordered mind sees this matrix.” I had been preparing for this and held up a piece of paper with this table:
Table 1—The Affordability Triage Matrix
“In summary,” I continued, “a policy that does not positively address Accommodation is a non-starter; a policy addressing both Accommodation and Amenity is better. Only after these two can we consider Aspiration.”
“Can you give us some more concrete examples of how this might work?” asked the chair, taking us where I wanted to go. I held up another table.
“Let’s plug in the irritant policies I mentioned above:”
Table 2—Some Sample Policies in the Affordability Triage Matrix
“I’ve deliberately kept this simple,” I said. “Based on my triage of cascading A’s, new approaches to the first four of the policy subjects above may improve Accommodation affordability, so are worth pursuing immediately. I don’t want to minimize the importance of climate change, but in the shorter run, which is what the folks trying to make rent are focused on, initiatives addressing climate change at our city level just get in the way. Once we’ve begun to move the needle on Accommodation affordability, then we can look at the amenity and aspirational stuff.”
It was time to wrap this up. “All of the policy issues that were mentioned as answers to our starting question remain valid and important—there are just too many of them for any level of government to tackle concurrently with some hope of success. If we use a simple triage method to identify what helps affordability today, versus next year or someday later, then I think we may make some meaningful progress.”
Part 2 of this Conversation will look in more detail at whether the Affordability Triage Matrix can help us prioritize policy initiatives. Readers should feel free to comment and to note the policies they feel should be considered in greater detail.
Brian Palmquist is a Vancouver-based architect, building envelope and building code consultant and LEED Accredited Professional (the first green building system). He is semi-retired, so not beholden to any client or city hall. These conversations mix real discussion with research and observations based on a 40+ year career including the planning, design and construction of almost every type and scale of project. He is the author of the Amazon best seller “An Architect’s Guide to Construction.”