VANCOUVER—From following Whistler’s lead and creating employee-specific housing, to hiring a chief economic officer to oversee land use decisions, some Vancouver mayoral candidates are starting to provide more details on how they would fix the city’s housing crisis.

The lack of affordable housing is a key issue in the first civic election held since real estate prices skyrocketed between 2015 and 2016, and the solutions put forward by various candidates may make or break their chances, said Mario Canseco, the president of local polling firm Research Co.

“I think part of the problem with so many undecided (voters) is that everyone’s waiting for the policy stuff to come out,” Canseco said. “I’ve never seen an election where you had this level of undecideds.”

Shauna Sylvester, an independent mayoral candidate, has released a series of policy announcement over the past few weeks, and is planning three more. While many candidates avoid making substantial platform announcements over the summer because they assume voters aren’t paying much attention, Sylvester said she’s not worried about doing thing differently.

Her policy announcements have so far covered a proposal to implement a hybrid ward system (five ward councillors representing specific areas of the city and five at-large councillors) and a commitment to look at adapting Whistler’s housing model for local workers for Vancouver.

A six-point housing plan released last week developed her ideas further, including a plan to increase the number of housing co-ops in the city and renew city land leases for existing co-ops. Her plan also included speeding up permits and fee waivers for homeowners who commit to build affordable housing on their single-family lots; but require a community amenity contribution from homeowners who build market-rate housing.

“I think that most people would say that during an election you don’t talk about policy,” Sylvester said. “I’m breaking the rules, I want to talk about policy, I want to raise real ideas and substantive ideas so we can, when we’re going into the campaign period, can really get into a discussion about how we’re going to solve the affordability crisis.”

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Hector Bremner, whose newly-formed Yes Vancouver party focuses on dramatically increasing the supply of housing, released a “preview” of some upcoming policy ideas.

They included hiring a chief economist to oversee planning decisions to ensure “there’s a good business case for these neighbourhoods.” Bremner is also proposing a speculation tax that collects 50 per cent of the profits of the sale of unimproved housing if it’s sold within 24 months of purchase.

“This will be a real speculation tax, targeting harmful activity, not just targeting families' home equity or certain communities for political points,” the party said in a statement, referring to a range of new taxes introduced by the provincial and municipal governments, including an empty homes tax, as second homes tax, increasing property tax on homes worth over $3 million and a foreign buyer tax.

Bremner said he still isn’t sure whether his party would keep Vancouver’s empty homes tax in place. NPA mayoral candidate Ken Sim, Bremner’s rival for voters on the centre-right spectrum, has said he doesn’t believe higher taxes are the solution to the city’s housing woes.

Vision Vancouver’s candidate, Ian Campbell, said the party will put out a more detailed platform in the coming weeks, but he’s already committed to tripling the empty homes tax from one to three per cent of a home’s assessed value, and will continue the “making room” initiative already put in place by the Vision-dominated city council. That policy aims to put denser housing forms like duplexes in single family neighbourhoods.

Vancouver voters likely want to hear very different things depending on their age, Canseco said, and balancing the difference is going to be a key challenge for the parties. Millennial voters who have been shut out of the housing market and in many cases even the rental market are looking for substantial change; meanwhile, one in five baby boomers “are saying, I’m not happy with the idea of having to pay more taxes” and that group tends to be motivated voters.

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“The (housing) policies have to address specific needs and that is going to be tough for the main parties,” Canseco said.

“If you’re looking to really capture a specific demographic, you’re bound to alienate others.”

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