For the past few years, housing prices in Vancouver have been skyrocketing, with growth rates upward of 25%. The average price of a house in Vancouver now exceeds $3 million with prices even higher in some neighbourhoods. These prohibitively high prices are driving young people out of the city and causing a huge brain drain, which will eventually lead to a collapse of innovation and major industries in Vancouver. The cost of living is simply too high to be sustainable.



The rate of new homes being built has remained unchanged over the past 15 years, but demand has skyrocketed. The vacancy rate in the downtown core is now 0.8%. We need to increase housing supply by increasing density and building more apartments and condominiums. The affordable housing proposed by the City is a good start, but it’s too little, too late. There needs to be thousands of new units built, not hundreds. This problem needs to be solved now!



There is simply not enough land in Vancouver to build only single family homes and low rise buildings. Areas along major roads like Cambie, Granville, and Commercial have extremely high demand and contain mainly single family homes and low rise buildings. These areas need to be redeveloped into multi family homes, mid rise and high rise buildings. Tens of thousands of new residences could be added through the redevelopment of these areas.



Sadly, some residents are pushing against new developments to keep supply low and further increase astronomically high property prices. The negative effects of this small minority needs to be curbed.



Archaic building height limits and view cones severely restrict the capability for high density buildings that would increase supply. This especially so on the West Side, where it is needed most. Ridiculous view cones, such as this one do very little to protect views. Who is realistically stopping on the Granville street bridge to admire that tiny bit of mountain? While some view cones have merit, they can be reduced to allow for taller buildings. Is anyone going to complain when the view is decreased by a couple of centimetres?



The city is continuing to force developers to decrease the height of their towers in an effort to protect ‘view cones’, unnecessarily sacrificing affordability in favour of a few extra centimeters of mountain views. Toronto has 68 buildings over 150m, New York has 240, Vancouver has 5. Taller building allows for better use of land space and creates additional supply, driving home prices down. Additionally, taller buildings provide a range of price points for prospective buyers.



While other issues such as foreign investment need to be investigated by the Government, low housing supply is a key factor to high house prices. Demand for housing will continue to grow as people move from other parts of the province, country and world and the population increases. The fastest solution right now is to increase housing supply. This is guaranteed to slow house price growth.

It's time to rezone areas of low density along major corridors to multi family, medium and high density housing. It’s time to set aside view cones and build taller buildings so the people can afford to live here.



Sign this petition if you want to make this great city of Vancouver more affordable for not only the current generation, but also for generations to come. We need to act now!