If housing prices continue to rise unchecked in Vancouver, the average home will cost more than $2.1 million by 2030 and require more than 100 per cent of the median household income to maintain, according to a new report from Vancity.

The report, Downsizing the Canadian Dream: Homeownership Realities for Millennials and Beyond, released today , found only Maple Ridge, New Westminster, Pitt Meadows, Port Coquitlam and Langley are now classified as "affordable," which means that housing costs don't exceed 32 per cent of a homeowners' gross monthly income.

"The dream of a family home is not dead, but does need an update for a new generation," said Ryan McKinley, Vancity's mortgage development manager. "We're going to need to ... live in closer and more interdependent ways ... to find an affordable and more sustainable lifestyle."

The report makes a number of recommendations for policy changes by municipal governments that could stop the trend, such as changes to zoning that would increase density, maximizing incentives for developers to build affordable workforce housing, and designing growth centres with dense cores tied to mass transit.

Vancouver's chief housing officer Mukhtar Latif said the city is already working on all of those ideas, including its new Affordable Housing Agency, which plans to build more than 1,000 units over the next four years on city-owned land that will be mainly rentals for people with low to moderate incomes, up to $86,000 per year.

He said the Rental 100 program gives incentives to developers to build more rental housing, and that new community plans in Marpole and the Downtown Eastside increase density.

"We are looking at initiatives all the time about how we can create supply and we are implementing many of those recommendations already," Latif said. "We are working with the region, through the Regional Housing Strategy, and the other municipalities have recognized the need to keep supply up."

The report also makes recommendations for provincial and federal governments, such as giving better property tax incentives for affordable housing, requiring permanent affordable housing zones that would be similar to the Agricultural Land Reserve, dedicating a portion of the property transfer tax to support affordable rental and home ownership options, and offering tax credits for affordable housing or accelerated depreciation of rental buildings.

Architect and real estate consultant Michael Geller said he agrees with all of those suggestions, except the notion of a permanent affordable housing zone.

"I strongly disagree with this idea, which I find horrifying. The fact is, for decades we have been trying to create neighbourhoods with a broad social and economic mix," Geller said.

"While some neighbourhoods will always be poorer or wealthier than others, they change over time.

"We can see this on the east side of Vancouver and elsewhere around the region."

Andy Yan, a planner with Bing Thom Architects and an adjunct professor of planning at the University of B.C., said he gives kudos to Vancity for researching the issue. "They are a locally headquartered financial institution and this gives them a unique insight into Vancouver real estate," Yan said, adding that the recommendations are interesting and should spark a conversation that could lead to informed, considered decisions on how to make housing more affordable in Vancouver.