[whatnext]

I hadn't heard about the strange last minute rewrite, but there was a good article in the Globe & Mail a couple weeks ago explaining the rationale behind it:

Critics say Vancouver needs to recalibrate its housing strategy
KERRY GOLD
VANCOUVER
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED MAY 13, 2020

The Housing Vancouver Strategy needs a serious rethink because it is based on flawed population projections that are pressuring the City to develop more market housing than it needs, say housing experts.

Councillor Colleen Hardwick’s motion to recalibrate the Housing Vancouver Strategy (HVS) was expected to go before council this week.

In 2017, the previous council responded to the city’s affordability crisis with a 10-year strategy that aimed to create a greater supply of rental and social housing, a diversity of housing types, and discourage speculative demand that had driven prices. The plan included a target of 72,000 new homes, of which nearly half would accommodate households earning less than $80,000 a year.

Ms. Hardwick and several others question the HVS’s goal to build 72,000 new homes of all types in the city between 2018 and 2027. They argue that the target is based on a flawed projected population increase of 158,400. That’s twice the historical rate, based on census numbers, and post-pandemic, there is no reason to believe that the population will drastically grow in the near future.

It’s an important distinction, they say, because the projected need for 72,000 homes guides housing policy.

David Ley, geography professor emeritus at the University of B.C., studies global housing markets. Dr. Ley said policy based on such a high projection leads to massive changes of the urban fabric, which is what the city has already endured.

“I think what the 72,000 [figure] does is set in orbit a whole series of policies and practices, and they include seemingly relentless condo development and the demolition of affordable rental units and spot rezoning, which is destabilizing neighbourhoods. And Vancouver residents voted exactly against that policy in the last civic election...

...It later became clear that much of the demand was for speculative or long-term investment. Last year, new government data showed that 46 per cent of Vancouver condos are rented out, used as a secondary residence, or left empty. But investor-owned housing is nothing new. The City of Vancouver’s own Condominium Rental Study from 2001 to 2009 showed that the rate of investor ownership in 2001 was 34.7 per cent.

Considering that high level of investor ownership, and no reason for a major influx of immigration, Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program, says he’d like to see a break down of the projection, and where the demand is coming from.

“What is that number based on? The City should be able to explain their assumptions, as opposed to citizens having to figure it out,” Mr. Yan says....


https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real...sing-strategy/