The Amazon second headquarter project is worth more than $5-billion

Councillor Adriane Carr says there's no room to house thousands of new Amazon employees

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A Vancouver city councillor is raising alarm bells about the push to get a multi-billion dollar corporation to set up shop here.

An Amazon headquarters in Metro Vancouver includes a promise of creating up to 50,000 jobs, but Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr says the demand for housing across the region is already too high.

“Where in this city, or even in this region, do we have the capacity to put that many people? Putting demand on housing is only going to increase the vacancy rate and escalate the prices.”

She adds she’s not against the company building a second North American headquarters in Metro Vancouver, but believes there’s not enough room for the workers attached to that possible investment by the Seattle-based online shopping centre.

“This would have the biggest impact I can imagine on how the city develops the services that we need and the affordability which is at a crisis right now.”

Why was Council not told about city bid for Amazon HQ? Asked for report on impacts of 50K jobs on housing, transp, local retail #fb #vanpoli — Adriane Carr (@AdrianeCarr) September 19, 2017

The Green Party Councillor is also upset there was no discussion at City Hall before Vancouver joined the competition for a local headquarters.

“Really regrettable that city council wasn’t informed of how we could make sure that it would happen in the public interest from the very beginning.”

Mayor Gregor Robertson hasn’t been available, but staff with the Vancouver Economic Commission say the project is worth more than $5-billion and those 50,000 jobs will be created over a ten to 20 year period.

Local mayor reacts

One of the cities that could end up housing the new Amazon headquarters is Richmond. Mayor Malcolm Brodie says he’s confident homes can –eventually– be found for thousands of new employees.

“First of all, I think the local market would absorb a lot of it. It would be up to us to work with the development community and to make sure that there is opportunity.”

Brodie adds that’s a good way to encourage even more investment in the region.

“It’s definitely going to be over a period of years. Like any other opportunity, I think we should look at it realistically. We should be encouraging economic development in our cities. That’s not to say it’s a free ride.”

He says he also has concerns about the bid, but cautions against discouraging this type of massive economic investment in the region.

“In this particular case, I can’t see any one city going it alone. The approach that has been discussed, has talked about Vancouver, Surrey and Richmond getting together. Some kind of a combined approach could lead us to success.”