Important decisions coming up at City Hall on Feb. 25, 26

by Jean Swanson

Will the city stop allowing supportive housing to be built? Will city staff recommend that the DTES Area Plan be scrapped and 30 story rental towers be allowed in the Oppenheimer area?

These are two things that could happen later this month. The Carnegie Housing Project (CHP) is gearing up to speak out for the DTES neighbourhood and for supportive housing.

The mayor announced late last month that he wants to pause "the construction of net new supportive housing units in Vancouver...." With 3000 people on the supportive housing wait list, and about 4000 who are homeless in the city this plan could condemn thousands to die on the housing wait list. Already the ABC City Council is allowing supportive modular housing to be lost when their land leases are up. 144 units are gone with over 600 more due to close by 2031.

The Mayor's code phrase for possibly putting 30 story towers in the DTES is "Updating the DTES Area Plan to encourage a mix of housing, businesses and services." Right now the plan stops condos in the Oppenheimer area and requires private rental housing to include 60 per cent social housing. In the rest of the DTES, buildings are restricted to about 12 stories. If 30 story towers are allowed (38 and 39 story towers are already proposed for E. Hastings near Raycam), property values would increase a lot and private SRO owners could sell the housing of last resort before homelessenss, leaving low income residents facing homelessness. Plus, with higher property values, desperately needed social houisng will be harder for non profits to build because land will cost so much.

Add to this, the Mayor also announced that he wants to use city land to build a 50 story rental tower in the West End for people earning $90,000 to $194,000 a year. People in this income group can afford rental housing in regular market housing. Plus using city land for richer people means it cant be used for low income folks. Usually when the city allows profit making developers to have very high buildings, it requires that 20 percent of the units rent at below market rents, but not in this city owned building.

It almost seems as if the Mayor is trying to drive low income people out of the city, even though there is no place for them to go and no housing they could afford.