19 Comments

• 129,057 homes in the pipeline

• 40-year supply of housing approved or in play (I get 31 years, but who's counting? It's a HUGE distortion! A travesty in planning)

Let me do a step-by-step in how I get to 31 years... First, we apply the 2.2 persons per home Vancouver average to get...

• 283,925 people living in 129,057 homes...

• Last census revealed that we are still growing at 1% per year (and have been doing that since before 1980...):

• 662,248 population (2021 from Stats Canada website—up 4.9% from 2016)

• The rule of 72 states that your investment at 1% per year will double in 72 years...

• 72 year population increment = 662,248 (double the population)

• 283,925 people is 43% of 662,248 population (2021)

• 31 years is 43% of 72 years growing at 1%

Whether it is 40 years supply or 31 years supply ITS JUST PLAIN WRONG!

In Metro Vancouver house prices are 7-times over affordability (3 years of mean household income before taxes). And they were predicted to go up 12% by the end of the year. Meaning they will be 8-times over affordability by the time people go to vote in the municipal elections.

House prices in Vancouver of course are higher.

Good as always to be able to 'do the math' about the horrible government we have running our city and the region!

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For sure the housing prices will rise up even more with all the inflation going on and the war causing supply chain crisis.

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No arguments rom me.

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36 year supply based on current 1% growth from a 2/01/2022 population figure of 631,486. Not to be too picky...

LB

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The city website for building permits, proposals etc., is a complete joke. Trying to find anything is like going down a rabbit hole. You can never find the same information/web page twice.

They are so deceptive. We need public input, conversations, neighbourhood needs, proposals, applications and approvals to be accessible!!! Kennedy Stewart will go down as the most secretive and unproductive mayor in Vancouver’s history.

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I agree, Stephanie. The only way I can make sense of it with my database, is it has the ability to attach links to a row of data, so as I am capturing project data I also attach the URL to the city's project page—otherwise I'd never be able to get back there if needed. Cheers, and thanks for reading.

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So, Devil's advocate question. If housing prices are so high because we're not building enough houses (supply and demand) and some folks think we need to create incentives for builders (see Ford, Doug, election) where are all these Vancouver developers coming from?

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Not very logical, is it. I think it’s a musical chairs scenario, where they all hope they won’t be left on the hook when the music stops

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City planning is not just about increasing housing for people who want to live in Vancouver! In fact living in a city requires planning that establishes the roots for the variety of social, health and community amenities relative to the size and location of the community. This City council, planners and developers are just discussing quantity with no vision for the qualities of the planned developments!

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Well said. Thanks for reading

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alphabetically and numerically by street name I mean, so easy to look up. That worked very well.

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my database is oeganized numerically, because sometimes there are address changes and this is the best way for me to catch them, also to see if a "new" application is already in the mix.

Thanks for reading

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I used to look regularly at the list of DP apps, listed alphabetically and numerically, so that I could see what was happening around my neighbourhood and others, easily pull up the plans associated with each one, and comment and advise on why the application was a good fit or why, for example, the location of parkade access was problematic. Now I have no idea how to do this. It's a shemozzle. it's all over the place. Who is responsible for this change and what was the reasoning? I hate to think it was to confuse people's access to information. Quire frankly, I don't think they are that smart. The object simply appears to be - make it look prettier.

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I cannot disagree with your analysis...at all. It should not be that difficult

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The homes are for the people who want to live in Vancouver - people born here who want to stay and people who would like to move here. You falsely state that the homes within all these plans count as "supply" but that is only true if every single building is demolished and replaced with maximum allowable density, which does not happen in the relevant time frame. Its fair to criticize the engagement process from city hall, the system is clearly broken. Broken because it forces the city to waste time consulting with residents who will only allow minimal growth after their properties became "worth" millions. We need bold action and growth - more than duplexes and laneway homes.

Did you see your previous post on the Broadway plan made it the Vancouver subreddit? It inspired many residents to submit statements in support of the plan who see the need for expanding housing to combat the crazy rental and home prices. Great work!

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I do not follow Reddit-maybe send me the relevant post and I will certainly view. As for your comments, clearly we disagree. My worry is that you may not understand what a 57% increase in population means in any time frame you care to select, when there are no new schools, no new parks, no new community centres, no new anything except houses. Until a decade ago, major development came with major infrastructure improvements such as mentioned above, funded by the developers with specific locations and time frames. There is none of this now-any new open space is cloistered (only for the new occupants); contributions to community amenities are paltry or completely absent. But every time amenity is added on real, public land, then the extent of private development needs to be curtailed. There is no curtailment here.

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That's fair but if your argument is that we need more amenities then say that and I certainly agree. Its not a reason not to build housing in my opinion.

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I must disagree—the areas in question are largely park, school and community centre deficient already. How can we add perhaps 400,000 new residents with the paltry or nonexistent amenities city staff have put on the table? To be clear, THERE IS NOTHING THERE! Staff plans have NO schools, NO new parks, NO new community centres (I'm not yelling, just emphasizing). There is a paltry sum suggested (not committed) for POSSIBLE future community amenities.

400,000 new residents will not thank us when they cannot enrol their children in schools—there are currently 89 elementary and 18 post secondary schools in Vancouver. Simple math suggests these proposals need 50 new elementary schools (or substantial additions) and 10 new high schools—yet there are 0 (zero) locations for schools identified. A paltry potential amount of cash will not get us there.

The South Granville Seniors Centre will be lost to the Broadway Plan redevelopment, yet there are no plans for its replacement. All the current users may have died by the time their Centre is gone, but they will be replaced.

There is a large middle ground between current plans and what a livable community needs. That's what we need to find.

By the way, I'm still waiting for that Reddit link. Thanks.

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