All the lights are flashing red, all the sirens are going off
Response to Elizabeth Murphy's op-ed in the Tyee
A quick response to Why BC’s Forced Rush to Rezone Neighbourhoods Is Wrong. I sent it to the Tyee, but didn’t hear anything back.
I was very surprised to see Elizabeth Murphy's op-ed in the Tyee, arguing that the provincial government requiring municipalities to allow multiplexes and transit-oriented development is too much, too soon.
Whenever I'm talking to politicians, I emphasize that all the lights are flashing red and all the sirens are going off. We have a desperate shortage of housing across Metro Vancouver. Vacancy rates are near zero. Prices and rents have to rise to unbearable levels to force people out, matching those remaining to the limited supply of housing. Renters are terrified of losing their housing. If your annual household income is less than $100,000, you cannot afford to move here, and that barrier is rising. A quarter of people in Metro Vancouver are planning to leave in the next five years.
The housing shortage is terrible for younger people and renters, but it's bad for everyone. Metro Vancouver is strangling itself. Older homeowners are somewhat insulated from high housing costs, but when younger people can't afford to live here, hospitals have a hard time finding nurses and even doctors, and the healthcare system is under increasing strain.
When Covid hit, suddenly a lot of people were working from home, needing more space, and willing to move in search of cheaper housing to places like Nelson and Nanaimo. This was great for them, but bad for local renters and homebuyers. Metro Vancouver's housing shortage basically spilled over, spreading misery across the entire province. It's like everywhere is suddenly a suburb of Vancouver, with prices and rents to match.
We desperately need more housing. What's most maddening about the situation is that we have people who want to live and work here, and other people who want to build housing for them - but we make it really hard to get permission ("it's easier to elect a pope"). We regulate new housing like it's a nuclear power plant, and we tax it like it's a gold mine. There's strong incentives for municipal governments to do this, which is why provincial intervention is both necessary and welcome.
Housing is a ladder: it's all connected. When we block new housing ("it's too much, too soon!" "it's unaffordable!"), the people who would have lived there don't disappear. They move down the ladder and we get trickle-down evictions. People near the bottom of the ladder are under tremendous pressure: they're forced to leave, to crowd into substandard housing, or worst of all, end up homeless.
We got through Covid because of shared sacrifice: "We're all in this together." Frankly, we need the same attitude when it comes to building more housing. Metro Vancouver is something like a city where 25% of the housing was destroyed by a natural disaster. We need more housing where people want to live (i.e. where prices and rents are high), and we need it as fast as possible. Allowing low-density multifamily housing (like multiplexes) by right, without having to go through a discretionary and agonizingly slow approval process, and allowing high-rises to be taller near SkyTrain stations and major bus exchanges, is a good start.
Russil Wvong is a software developer who lives in Vancouver. He ran for Vancouver city council in 2022 with Kennedy Stewart's slate. He’s a volunteer with Abundant Housing Vancouver and the Vancouver Area Neighbours Association, and he has a daily newsletter, morehousing.ca.