CityHallWatch on Reddit mobilization

They don't like it

CityHallWatch is a blog by housing skeptics Randy Helten and Steve Bohus, going back to 2010. There’s a recent post by Steve Bohus on the 25-storey rental building at 2015 Main Street.

• “First, who owns the property?” (Westbank, plus Ryan Holmes of Hootsuite.)

• Second: who did they donate to? (ABC, but also the Green Party, Forward Together, and the NPA.)

• Finally: “Who is mobilizing whom to influence our elected officials in this rezoning?” Why were there more than 300 comments in support of the rezoning? That’s easy: I made a post to Reddit. Part of a series.

To try to summarize Bohus’s perspective:

• Upzoning to 25 storeys - even when it’s rental - produces massive land lift, enriching the landowners.

• Developers donating to municipal political parties provides an incentive for councillors to make decisions benefiting them.

• I’m acting as a cheerleader for developers.

First, rentals are far less lucrative than condos: people are willing to pay roughly 50% more for condos. Purpose-built rental projects are actually a low-risk, low-return business, which is why they’re typically owned by long-term institutional investors like pension funds and REITs. In Vancouver you're not going to have high vacancy rates, and conversely you know that your rental income is going to be pretty stable without a lot of upside - it's not like investing in a tech company like Google or Nvidia. An example from Reddit.

From a renter's point of view, the key advantage of renting in an institutionally-owned purpose-built rental is security: when you're renting a basement suite or a condo, the owner can always reclaim the space for personal use.

Second, municipal political parties do indeed seek to raise money from developers - but I would argue that the incentives are far stronger for elected officials to focus on their voters. (Developers can donate, but they can’t vote; and their donations are restricted by provincial legislation.)

In particular, homeowners are extremely sensitive to property taxes, which is why the city of Vancouver has very low property taxes (about a third of 1%), increasing demand by lowering carrying costs; and very high development charges, restricting supply. Over the 10 years from 2011 to 2020, the city extracted $2.5 billion in supposedly voluntary Community Amenity Contributions.

Finally, regarding my own incentives: whenever I speak to council I always emphasize that I don’t work in real estate or development, and I’m not speaking on behalf of anyone who does. Like the CityHallWatch people, I’m doing this as a volunteer. In fact you could say that I’m primarily motivated by housing opponents, like CityHallWatch themselves. What I’m aiming to do is to counterbalance housing opponents, to make sure that city council hears from housing supporters as well.

xkcd

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I left a comment on the CityHallWatch post, but it looks like it’s in the moderation queue.

Housing in Metro Vancouver is extremely scarce and expensive. We have lots of jobs and not enough housing. Vacancy rates are near zero. So prices and rents have to rise to unbearable levels to keep people out and to force people to leave.

This is bad for everyone. Younger people and renters are being crushed and driven out by high housing costs; everyone feels stretched to the limit, because real salaries (after accounting for the cost of housing) are low. Older homeowners are somewhat insulated, but they still feel the pressure. Where are our children going to live? And how is the healthcare system going to work when high housing costs act like a filter keeping out younger people, so that hospitals have a hard time hiring nurses and even doctors?

I'm actually optimistic that we can actually build more housing and bring down housing costs from their current unbearable levels, by reforming land use as Auckland did in 2016. We have people who want to live and work here; we have other people who want to build housing for them. The problem is, obtaining municipal approval for each and every individual project is maddeningly slow, difficult, and expensive. (As Ginger Gosnell-Myers puts it: "It's easier to elect a pope than to approve a small rental apartment building in the city of Vancouver.")

That's why I spend so much time arguing for more housing, and also why I ran for city council in 2022. It's not just me, of course: there's a loosely organized and very active group of people who are advocating for more housing. After watching a public hearing, it's common for people to ask, "Why is this process so broken, and why hasn't anyone fixed it?!"

Since the CityHallWatch post spent a lot of time talking about profits and donations, I'll emphasize that I don't work in real estate or development, and I don't speak to council on behalf of anyone who does. (I work in software.) But I really enjoy arguing with people on the Internet.

More

Back in September, Michelle Cyca wrote an article in the Georgia Straight talking about an earlier rezoning (for a five-storey rental building in Kerrisdale) where I’d helped to mobilize support through Reddit. How come a Reddit user is doing a better job of housing communications than the City of Vancouver?

On a sunny afternoon earlier this summer, when I could have been doing any number of pleasant activities—lying on the beach, relaxing on a patio, eating an ice cream—I was instead pacing around my kitchen, phone pressed to my ear, waiting to speak at a Vancouver city council public hearing.

Of course it’s not just me. The Vancouver Area Neighbours Association is an informal but very active pro-housing group, centered around a Discord server. Some past battles.