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For instance, the city expects to build 130 rental units for working families and singles on a lot at 2221 Main St., with rents between $850 to $2,000 per month. But it would need an additional subsidy of $25 million from senior government or other partners to ensure it can achieve those rents, and another $45 million from provincial and federal governments to bring them even lower.

Mayors have lobbied for decades to get senior levels of government to inject more money or incentives to boost the rental housing stock. Ottawa has announced it will create a federal housing strategy, but the province has yet to take similar measures.

The province, which was asked at the Union of B.C. Municipalities last year to create a housing program to stimulate rental housing and maintain existing stock, replied that it is up to cities “who are responsible for planning, zoning and development regulation, to use the tools at their disposal to support the province’s efforts and further the creation of new housing supply.”

Photo by NICK PROCAYLO / PNG

The situation has led to a hodgepodge of measures across the region, which needs 18,200 new housing units per year — one-third of those purpose-built rentals — over the next decade, according to a recent Metro Vancouver report. Two-thirds of those purpose-built rentals should be earmarked for very low or low-income households, the report states.

Vancouver, which has its own Charter, can instill special provisions against the demolition or loss of single-room occupancy housing. It insists on one-on-one replacement for all units lost to redevelopment, for instance, and is developing a tax on empty homes, which is slated to be in place next year. The four city-owned sites are also the first of 20 that will also become part of the city’s first Community Land Trust. Vancouver has pledged to add 2,500 more units by 2021.