Quote:
Originally Posted by whatnext
Watching Kahlon try to tap dance his way out of the Larch controversy is amusing:
B.C. Housing Minister defends project criticized as unaffordable
Kerry Gold, Vancouver, Special to The Globe and Mail
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Rant incoming, but I honestly don't see the problem. 1807 Larch exists thanks to MIRHPP, which, though limited in scope, has spurred the construction of more market-rate and BMR housing than had it not existed at all. This particular project targets moderate/middle incomes, as it should. Rents have increased alongside inflation between 2019 and 2024, so targeted rents from the start of the project are understandably no longer economical. But the new rents aren't unreasonable against household incomes from MIRHPP.
I would also point out that average market rents have increased across the board, precisely because we still have not gotten a handle on the housing crisis and supply and vacancy remain low... not because this one project somehow got out of control. The criticism of the rent rates in this building is being looked at from the wrong side. As a reminder, the CoV's 10-year housing targets from 2018-2027 aimed for 20,000 purpose-built rental units for household incomes between $30,000 and $150,000 per year. So this is a lot of bluster over a 54-unit project representing 0.27% of that target.
Do we really think anyone desperate for a place to live is going to be picky about "not being able to walk around the bed", when the alternative for someone making less than $80,000 a year could be living in a camper van? Or leaving town? Or worse? No, they're going to be happy that they live 15 minutes from their job, or are a bus/bike ride away from school or the shops and cafes they frequent.
I think we should stop amplifying NIMBY-sympathetic "journalists" who are trying to use a single project, in an otherwise expensive, in-demand neighbourhood, as an example of how housing policy changes and building efforts writ large are failing. There is a common thread in every Kerry Gold article: everything is bad, nothing being done is working. The towers are 10,000 feet tall, the shadows are 10,000 feet long. But, conveniently, there is never any discussion about what
would work instead.
That's because none of the people she interviews actually want any housing to be built and they don't want anything in their neighbourhoods to change beyond the most minor tinkering — and if they say they do, they throw out a ton of hoops and hurdles and constantly move the goalposts. What they define as affordable is unrealistic, but that is by design. As with anything, they are using the litany of different housing programs, targets, pilot projects, subsidies, etc., and the fact that rents are a moving target, to try to whip up opposition through confusion.
People who do this are not worth listening to. They don't work in good faith and they don't offer anything of value in the discussion. There's nothing wrong with having legitimate concerns about a development, and obviously nothing wrong about a healthy discussion about affordability. But that's not what these folks are doing, so they aren't the folks that should be engaged in that discussion.
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