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Originally Posted by GenWhy?
We've heard from every party in person that they're going to reduce wait times through the process. One councillor was surprised to hear a few weeks back from us that the wait times have not improved but have shifted from on phase to another. We do most of the Development Permit stuff in the Rezoning phase now. All I've heard from the NPA is that they will retain the program as best they can with the Greens wanting to edit the DCL stuff... and they're fuzzy on the "incentive" part. But we meet with some of them again soon. Rental 100 review is in Autumn so it gives us some time to present our ideas. Stovel gave them a rental proforma at the beginning of their term.. I guess they still don't get it.
As far as streamlining the Rental 100 program... it's complicated. It's less about the neighbourhood and more about existing zoning, and the whole rezoning process and the bag of goodies it comes with.
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"Hopefully it'll work." -George Lucas
Quote:
Originally Posted by Changing City
It's true that we're not seeing 12,000 rentals a year added to the stock of Greater Vancouver housing. The GWL numbers are a bit low though. Here are the CMHC numbers for rental completions since 2015: [ source]
2015 3,382
2016 3,513
2017 4,800
2018 6,275
so far in Q1 of 2019 there have been another 1,156 completed.
These are all purpose-built rentals: rented condos or private houses owned for investment will be in addition to these numbers. It's impressive that the City of Vancouver is responsible for adding 45% of the total 17,970 rentals completed in Greater Vancouver between 2015 and 2018. Surrey added 13%, and Burnaby just 7%. (Those aren't net numbers either - Vancouver mostly doesn't allow the loss of existing rental buildings. Burnaby; not so much until now.) |
TBF, Vancouver is the most suited for rentals, already having the most rentals, and being the best served for Transit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by misher
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).
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TBF, charging the vacancy tax during rezoning incentivises developers to go through the approval process more quickly. The problem is that the approval process is too bureaucratic in the first place. It's a walkup apartment, not a factory.