Vancouver Officials Take Social Housing Vertical

In one of the boldest, least understood moves in Canadian housing policy, Vancouver planners are pushing ahead with an upzoning recommendation that would allow highrises of up to 20 stories on nearly one-third of the city, without any public hearings or rezoning processes, according to the Vancouver Sun.

The goal is to fast-track the development of “social housing,” a catch-all term Vancouver uses for everything from mixed-income and co-op apartments to supportive housing with on-site services.

The proposal greenlights towers as tall as 20 stories in swaths of low-rise neighborhoods like Kitsilano, Dunbar and East Hastings. It also permits six-story blocks on another fifth of the city.

The plan has gained momentum, even as officials send mixed messages.

In February, Mayor Ken Sim and his ABC party members, who control a majority of the council, voted to pause new supportive housing projects, citing the need for other municipalities to shoulder more of the region’s social housing burden. But city staff now say the pause came with wide-ranging exemptions, including for housing focused on seniors, families, youth and more, and that high-rise supportive housing is still firmly on the table.

Planning consultant and former Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. director Michael Geller says the quiet push toward towers raises serious urban design concerns.

“Allowing 15- to 20-story buildings along so many local neighborhood streets throughout the city is most inappropriate,” he told the outlet, warning against concentrating too many vulnerable residents in tall buildings with limited services. Research, he claimed, consistently finds better outcomes for families in mid- or low-rise housing. “Indeed, it is bordering on the absurd from an urban design and planning perspective.”

Despite pushback from residents and groups like the Kitsilano Coalition, who successfully blocked a 13-story project earlier this year, the city is signaling a long-term shift. Even the cover image on the city’s social housing engagement report, showing a leafy block with no towers, fails to reflect the scale of the proposed changes, Geller said, calling it “disingenuous.”

“These buildings should be limited to about 60 units,” Geller said, though “preferably” limited to six stories. For now, city planners appear to be letting height and urgency win out.

The policy shift comes as Vancouver’s development cycle stirs back to life. Developer Holborn Group filed plans for a huge, multi-tower project downtown in May, including what could become British Columbia’s tallest skyscraper at 78 stories, the outlet reported.

The developer had said now is the right time to move forward on the project, which has been nearly two decades in the making, as Vancouver’s rezoning barriers start to loosen and it grows with “ambitions to be more like a world-class city.”

— Judah Duke