Quote:
Originally Posted by Klazu
So those lots were reserved for city to pay to build? Isn't it nowadays that developers themselves have to pay and build the associated social housing components as part of the main development, or have I misunderstood?
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The parcels were identified when the overall plan for the Expo Lands was made with Concord, and the other Expo developers (Henderson at International Village and Bosa at Citygate). In the era that deal was put together, there were federal and provincial funds to pay for non-market housing, and so the City got the right to purchase the land at a fixed cost (which hasn't gone up since the agreement) and then found other funding to build the various non-market buildings. There are co-ops and seniors buildings on former Concord sites, there's
Sorella at International Village, and there is a co-op and non-market rental at Citygate. There was a similar approach in Coal Harbour - there's a co-op, and a mixed tenure building called C-Side, developed by the City, and a private project with a seniors complex as part of it called Performing Arts Lodge. There's another site for non-market housing, owned by the City, but not funded until now as it was also reserved for a school, and funding for that has taken decades to come through.
For most of the past 20 years it became impossible to get any federal funding, and harder to get provincial funds - although Sorella is a Provincially funded project, one of the initial 12 (later 14) non-market buildings funded by the province in the later 2000s on City owned land.
Some new non-market buildings are still following that model of City land and provincial funds - the new
Roddan Lodge under construction in the DTES for example.
Once it became apparent that neither the Province or Feds would fund enough non-market housing, the City got creative. There's non-market housing and a co-op in Woodwards, there's
a housing co-op owned by the City as part of Concert's SEFC project, there are two co-ops included in the Olympic Village and two other Provincially funded non-market buildings for the hard-to-house on welfare,
First Place and the
Marguerite Ford apartments.
Private developers have also built non-market units as a benefit instead of paying a CAC. There are seventy units in
Strathcona Village, built by Wall, for example. You're probably aware of the buildings with the lowest income, most difficult to house tenants because they attract the most attention. But there are many more that don't have those problems - some of which you might not realise are non-market. A now retired Director of Planning greatly enjoyed touring visitors to the city around Concord getting them to play 'spot the non-market housing'.
With no shortage of need for subsidized units - at welfare, low-income and less-than-market, there are a whole series of new buildings coming forward with non-market units; increasingly they have a mix of all three levels of tenants renting in them. Some will be purpose-built, and others like
The Jervis and
Mirabel in the West End will be privately developed and also have condos above.
You asked "I wonder how many social housing units actually exists in Yaletown and Downtown (not counting DTES)". One answer is - not enough.
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