VANCOUVER—Luxury property developer Westbank is denying accusations that its Chinese website was shut down, a platform that drew sharp criticism for drawing foreign money that some argue has contributed to Vancouver’s inflated real estate market.

Under the “activity” section of the website in simplified Chinese, the company promotes a 10 per cent first deposit on purchases, and an unlimited number of homes one can buy.

It lists several so-called “hot topics,” selling points including banks lowering mortgage rates especially compared to England, the U.S. and Australia; Vancouver as a home for the global rich; and a 26 per cent increase in condo prices last year.

But according to Vancouver housing advocate Rohana Rezel, the company’s Chinese site became inaccessible shortly after he published a post Thursday morning on his website. Rezel wrote he was“distressed” and “dismayed” that the Canadian government was considering a proposal from Ian Gillespie, CEO of Westbank, to potentially build 50,000 units of affordable housing in Vancouver and Toronto run by Creative Housing Society, a non-profit created by Gillespie in 2017.

Rezel said Gillespie’s proposed housing project is a conflict of interest with Westbank operations.

“If you look at what Westbank has done — they have targeted exclusively the Chinese market because his director of marketing, Michael Braun, said that in an interview, posted on his website, that if the Chinese market isn’t interested, he’s not building it.”

Braun said in a statement to StarMetro that the reaction over the company’s “technical glitches” and “past statements” by individuals and groups is “an effort to promote their own agenda and personal opinions.”

“The majority of those appear to have no regard for facts,” Braun’s statement says. “They fail to recognize that Westbank pioneered the Local First initiative, which is now being replicated by many developers and municipalities.”

Braun said that Westbank uses simplified Chinese in its marketing materials “to educate and inform about our practice, our body of work, and advertise our current projects for sale” because Chinese is the mother tongue of more than 40 per cent of Vancouver’s population.

The company also believes that its “local-first program” responds to concerns from the community about entry into the housing market. It cites the Horseshoe Bay development in 2016 as an example, whereby the first 30 days were “exclusively” marketed to West Vancouver residents, and to the rest of Metro Vancouver residents and workers for 60 days afterwards.

But Rezel said the company was “forced to introduce this local-first scheme” after activists had found the project advertised overseas.

He argued the local first program’s prices are still high enough to deter locals.

“If you set the prices at levels that Canadians can’t afford ... it doesn’t matter if you wait 30 days. This local-first policy is meaningless. It should be locals-only policy.”

Those in the real estate industry have a different take. Eddie Yan, a Vancouver and Burnaby real estate agent, doesn’t see a problem with developers advertising overseas as long as locals are prioritized and offered first.

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A real estate agent for 28 years, he believes a decline in foreign investments could potentially slow the whole economy.

“When they’re not investing in here, the economy slows down a bit. They don’t buy cars, they don’t come, they don’t bring the money over. On the other side of the coin is, the next generation, like my kids, they really can’t afford to buy.”

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