What Vancouver can do about Affordability—Part 2

City Conversation #71: Different types of zoning require different planning treatments

August 19th—fifth in a series of eight conversations about homelessness, housing insecurity, affordability and planning.

Shouldn’t this be at the head of the permit line?

“So what’s the difference in planning terms between a spot rezoning and an existing zoning and why should I and other younger residents care?” I liked how my son was learning to get quickly to the heart of matters.

“There are about 70 existing zones in the city—at least there were until the Broadway Plan added more than 50 new ones.” He raised his brow at that added complexity.

“Is it any wonder that it takes so long to develop almost anything in this town?” I asked, facetiously. “Former Vancouver Senior Planner Scot Hein, who now teaches at UBC, recently wrote in his book Zoning must Evolve: you Forgot about Me that Vancouver’s 70 zoning districts could be managed in as few as six—being conservative, I think we should target a maximum of 10, and if we do better, so be it! As a foundational principle, we need to drastically reduce by about 90% the number of zoning districts in the city.”

He nodded at that proposed simplicity, like me, he’s not too detailed oriented, so I carried on. “Let’s assume that instead of the plan to make a plan that is the Vancouver Plan, we instead get bold and simply fit most of the city into the 6-10 categories that Scot recommends: character homes we want to rejuvenate and densify while retaining the various characters of Vancouver; lower density housing, but allowing for duplexing, secondary suites and laneways; denser multiple residential buildings like the one you live in; local commercial and residential combined, such as already exists in many neighbourhoods; higher density commercial and residential together because we know we need that; industrial with or without commercial and residential, depending; and institutional, such as schools, hospitals, community centres, etc.” He nodded at the logic of this. I continued.

“Once we have regularized our zoning from 70 into 6-10 districts, we are ready to proceed with incremental redevelopment of so much of our city that is crying for renewal and densification but seems forever at the back of the line, behind spot rezonings that apparently feed more CACs into the city hall maw. I estimated over a year ago that there were more than 10,000 homes that could be developed that way.” He chuckled at the image, grew thoughtful about the 10,000 number.

“Does that 10,000 include the laneways, secondary suites and duplexes that all seem to take way too long to get permits?” he asked.

“No,” I answered. “The city’s own estimate is that there are 550 additional laneways and duplex homes created every year—they have no idea about secondary suites.” He paused at that information gap.

“So,” I continued, “as a foundational principle for the rejuvenation and densification of already-zoned properties, Time and attention priority should be given to projects that conform to existing city zoning They should be at the head of the project lines. And projects with residential elements should be at the head of the head of the line.”

“I like that logic,” he interjected, “but you’ve told me before that we have lots of spot rezoning projects already approved or in process. What about them?”

“Here’s where the leadership at city hall needs to get tough,” I responded. “A rezoning only becomes fixed when it’s followed by a Development Application (DA) which typically has more details than a rezoning does. In fact, 10% of the city’s current rezonings in process have almost no detail, which I find egregious!”

“But I digress. When a DA is approved by city staff and/or the Development Permit Board, it becomes a Development Permit (DP). Once a DP is issued it becomes very difficult for the city to change the rules, but until a DP has been issued, the city may change the terms of the rezoning.” He heard the gravity in my voice, waited for an explanation.

“I’ve previously written about how the current Council has already approved enough spot rezoned housing to last the city to 2050, even at the city’s own expansive estimates of need.” He nodded, recalling the numbers. “But less than 1% of that housing has actually been completed, thanks to city hall’s byzantine procedures.” He nodded again.

“So there are thousands of rezoned homes for which DPs have yet to be issued, and few will be approved before the election. The almost 40,000 homes in spot rezonings without DPs represents a great opportunity to create affordable housing; at the moment no more than 20% of those are affordable, by the city’s own crazy definitions.” He waited for me to proceed.

“We could mandate 20,000 affordable homes if we simply adopted as a foundational principle an approach that Professor Patrick Condon of UBC notes is being used with success in some American cities with acute affordability issues: Where an existing multiple residential property is proposed for spot rezoning redevelopment, the new development must have one affordable home for each market rental or strata home—one for one.”

“I like the simplicity of one for one,” he commented. “But I see one gap in your analysis—what about situations like my own, like the Broadway Plan fallout, where existing tenants are demovicted for redevelopment as a much larger project?”

“Interestingly,” I replied, “in this one area I sort of agree with the Mayor’s last minute promise associated with the Broadway and Vancouver Plans—unfortunately the city’s tenant relocation folks have a terrible record around helping evicted tenants find temporary or alternative homes, which is probably why the Vancouver Tenant’s Union came out so forcefully against those Plans.”

“There will always be some degree of redevelopment in the city,” I continued, “so I think the foundational principle underlying that reality should be that redevelopment of an existing residential rental property can only happen after its existing tenants are offered comparable (price, size and location) accommodation during redevelopment, then offered a similar sized home at their pre-existing rent in the new building.”

“Will that solve that issue?” he asked.

“Well, remembering the foundational principle of one for one, that would mean that whereas at the moment, a Broadway Plan inspired redevelopment of your building would require that the city find accommodation and provide you and your 15 neighbours with first right of refusal for new rental homes in the replacement building, that would still be the case but half the newer, denser building would be affordable rental or strata. So if somebody proposes replacing your 15 homes with 100, in addition to providing 15 replacement, affordable rentals, an additional 35 of the homes in the replacement building would also need to be affordable rental or strata—the impact on affordability would be dramatic and relatively quick.”

After a moment he asked, “Won’t one for one make some projects nonviable?” I smiled before answering.

“It may be that one for one is a bit much, and I’m not a real estate analyst. But 20% or less as we have now is just giving away the store, as far as I’m concerned—and Vancouver’s store of land is limited, so we need to have a generous (to residents) formula that applies everywhere in the city, rather than the crazy behind closed doors negotiations that happen now, sew mistrust with residents and continue to inflate land prices, making homes more and more unaffordable. If that causes some current projects with pitiful amounts of affordable housing, or none at all, to be shelved, frankly I’m okay with that.”

“I’m OK, too,” he answered, “I think we’ve got that one nailed. Back to the rejuvenation and rethinking of neighbourhood planning offices that you suggested earlier,” my son reminded me as we closed out our affordability discussions for the moment. “What are the foundational principles at work there?”

The Time for Action is Here and Now

The additional three What Vancouver can do about… conversations that follow are my continuing take on actionable homelessness, housing insecurity, neighbourhood planning and related policies that our next civic government should focus on—what we can actually achieve versus what we might aspire to (and waste taxpayer money on). They may or may not be the detailed policies of any civic party, but are most closely aligned to TEAM for a Livable Vancouver.

Vancouver’s civic election is October 15th of this year. Lots more damage can still be done to our city before that date—and it will continue, and worsen, unless TEAM elects the next Mayor and a majority (6 of 10) City Councillors—less than 6 and not much will change for the better. If you are concerned that the City Conversations you’ve been reading are examples of what’s wrong with our city, feel some affinity to my What Vancouver can do about… conversations and want to bring back Vancouver’s livability, join TEAM and work with us to restore Vancouver as a place we can all afford to call home.

And please let me know what other subjects you are passionate about so we can have that conversation before election day, October 15th.

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Today’s questions: Do you think these foundational principles can work? Are they worth trying? What aspects do you like/dislike? Where do you think I have missed or hit the mark?

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I am a Vancouver-based architect, building envelope and building code consultant and LEED Accredited Professional (the first green building system). I am semi-retired for the moment, still teaching and writing, so not beholden to any client or city hall. City Conversations mix real discussion with research and observations based on my 40+ year career including the planning, design and construction of almost every type and scale of project. I am the author of the award winning Amazon best seller “An Architect’s Guide to Construction.” I am also a member of TEAM for a livable Vancouver, a new political party dedicated to restoring a livable Vancouver starting with the 2022 civic election. Although I am not a candidate for TEAM or any other civic party, City Conversations are generally congruent with TEAM policy, so if you like the ideas that I’m writing about, please consider joining TEAM.