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Vancouver took a big stride last week toward its 2019 target for approving construction of rental homes — after reaching barely half of last year’s goal. But the latest council vote included some unusual drama as federal election rivals squared off on opposite sides.

Don Davies, NDP MP for Vancouver Kingsway, spoke at a council public hearing last week to oppose rezoning for a seven-storey building project with ground-floor commercial space and 121 housing units to be rented at market rates.

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“I’m in favour of all modalities of rental, including market. But when you have exclusively market, and there’s not a unit of affordable housing, then darn rights I’m going to object to that,” Davies said this week in explaining his first appearance at a city hall hearing in his decade-plus as MP.

City hall watchers said it was unusual for an MP to come to council to oppose a specific project. Others were unhappy a federal politician spoke against market rental homes in his riding when the city’s vacancy rate has been around or below a critically low one per cent for years. The project before council, planned for Fraser Street near East 22nd Avenue, is in a neighbourhood where the vacancy rate is just 0.5 per cent.