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Originally Posted by Changing City
I'm not sure what the City of Vancouver, (or Richmond, Surrey, Burnaby etc.) could have done to prevent the run up of prices. That's mostly down to low interest rates for lending. If there were municipalities that had closed down development (as San Francisco did for many years) that could have contributed to higher prices. I don't think that happened here though - although there are certainly municipalities slamming the brakes on since the last round of local elections. Whether prices will rise, or not fall as much as a result in White Rock remains to be seen...
What land do you have in mind, sitting underdeveloped and waiting for large-scale construction, owned by any level of government? The Feds have released Jericho and the RCMP site in the City of Vancouver. I'm not familiar with suburban municipalities enough to know if there are federal or provincial sites sitting with development potential - but I'd be surprised. To allow new non-market projects in Vancouver the city have been buying sites on the open market - which is far from cheap.
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One big thing Vancouver has to do is simplify its building code and speed up its permit approvals. That's a big extra cost. Plus it doesn't help that we charge 1% vacancy tax while waiting for permit approvals. This results in extra costs above the costs incurred building in other municipalities.
A big factor is also our rental supply. Rental investment is very long term and many are shying away. Programs that incentivise investment in rental like waiving rental restrictions on new buildings for a set period or encouraging foreign investment in rental development would be great. Things that basically cost the government nothing but result in greater rental construction. Perhaps even waiving/reducing property transfer taxes on new rental construction so developers build them to then sell (and then repeat).