Re: Allen Garrs Jan. 27 column, City incentives have done little for affordability.
Garr misses the history behind why the city always asks for 20 per cent to be social housing in major redevelopment projects. When the city was developing False Creek South, those lands between Granville and Cambie Bridges and Sixth Avenue and False Creek, the council of the day wanted no social housing at all. In fact the contemporary comments of Setty Pedergast, alderman for the city, was that he did not want a Skeena by the Sea. It was COPEs Harry Rankin that negotiated a one third, one third and one third ratio for low, middle and upper strata of society. The low income group is often referred to as social housing, which includes seniors housing, cooperative housing as well as housing for handicapped individual and families. At the same time he negotiated that the land be held by the Property Endowment Fund of the city and leased out for 99 years. This principle is a remnant from feudalism that still continues in Europe, for instance, in Scotland 95 per cent of the land is owned by five individuals, and leased to their tenants and lessees.
Subsequently it became an embarrassment to the NPA not to have social housing in major development projects and they decided to make the threshold at 20 per cent. UBC and SFU just followed a long tradition of maintaining ownership of the land. Remember that their majority tenants are low income students.
The history of the Olympic Village shows the politics of housing. Originally social housing was set by the NPA at 20 per cent, then a COPE/Vision council set it higher only to have the following NPA council reset it at 20 per cent. When the project was delivered the NPA argued that the social housing should be sold at market rates. Unfortunately the city, under Vision, was the debt holder with a commitment set in a contract to itself for 20 per cent. As the debt holder it is estimated that city will lose $100 million on the project. This is $100 million more than the provincial government promised when the city held its referendum on holding the Olympics.
The Olympic Village and now the Little Mountain project follow a policy implemented by Gordon Campbell, as the mayor of Vancouver, the premier of B.C. and the Honorary Chair of the Canadian Council for Public Private Partnerships that sells the land to a developer and lets them implement a market oriented housing policy. Affordable housing is not high on a market-oriented housing policy. Just look at the issues of social housing in the Olympic Village. Higher density, smaller floor space per unit, taller buildings are some of the desired goals of a market-oriented housing policy. As for social housing in the developers proposal for the 15.2 acre Little Mountain site, it is 18.5 per cent.
The true challenge for our city council is to convince the province to transfer the 15.2 acre Little Mountain site to our Property Endowment Fund to compensate for the $100 million loss on the Olympic Village. Then it will take considerable guts and guile for them to implement their affordable housing policy.
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Chris Shelton is a second-generation Vancouverite who has a passion for the city's history of development.
