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Instead, governments should fast track approval of row housing and two- and three-bedroom townhouses, with increased density around schools, bus lines and rapid transit stations.

The Harcourt vision would see SkyTrain tunnelled all the way to the University of B.C. campus, including a stop at the soon-to-be-developed Jericho lands.

But to finance a line whose cost per kilometre would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, Harcourt would impose highrise densities around the stations. And you think folks on the west side of Vancouver were up in arms over property taxes?

Gone from office for 22 years and counting, Harcourt has a ready response for those taken aback by his provocations on the housing file. When columnist Les Leyne of the Victoria Times Colonist said folks in his neighbourhood would never stand for the end of single-family housing, he fired back: “I don’t have to worry about your neighbours any more, Les — I am not running for anything.”

Harcourt was in Victoria for a forum on urban issues put on by the United Nations Association. Other speakers included former B.C. Liberal cabinet minister Peter Fassbender and former Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall.

But the comments of the 75-year-old former NDP premier struck me as particularly relevant because of the way he praised one aspect of the current government’s housing plans while discounting others.

Harcourt said the John Horgan government is right to get going on social housing. He regards it as nothing short of a tragedy that the last federal Liberal government stopped funding Ottawa’s share of social housing, contributing to a deficit that numbers in the tens of thousands of units.