Eight ideas for affordability

Time to select a gnarly fork in the road: These two magnificent, gnarly trees mark the fork in a path in Helliwell Park on Hornby Island—photo watercolour by Brian Palmquist

I recently made a presentation to a local neighbourhood group, entitled “How did we get here?” It focused on how in Vancouver (and other places in BC) new monster buildings, mini houses1 were not solving housing affordability—for example, former single family Vancouver homes lots bought for $2.5 million, two duplex units created, each sold for $2.5 million, each smaller than what they replaced.

The presentation was well received and gave rise to a half hour of excellent questions and dialogue. One query especially resonated with me:

“Why doesn’t supply and demand seem to be working? Surely, if we build lots more housing, prices will come down?”2

With many thanks to thoughtful urban planners such as Patrick Condon3, my answer was very well understood by the audience:

“When you are talking about, say, televisions, supply and demand generally works—hence Black Friday specials. When you are talking about anything connected to the dirt we stand on, it does not work because of the limited supply of dirt. Zone to allow more homes on a piece of dirt and you just inflate the value of the dirt rather than deflate the cost of the homes4.”

This morning, a reading of a Guardian article, “Europe’s housing crisis is fuelling the rise of the far right. Our research shows how to address it”5 made me realize how that’s also happening here in Canada. Folks, especially younger folks shut out of housing, are eschewing the politicians and parties that have got us into this pickle. The established solutions are seen at best as suspect, at worst exclusionary.

So what might work? Borrowing from the Guardian article and other sources, here are eight starting ideas consistent with my own biases:

1. Create housing that is affordable, secure and non-speculative: Vancouver has largely adopted a cannibalistic approach to housing development in existing neighbourhoods such as the Broadway Plan areas, where affordable low rise rentals are to be replaced with much more expensive high-rises offering at most 30% affordable homes6. For suggestions how to proceed with this principle, see below.

2. Reinvest in social housing at scale: The federal, provincial and municipal governments all have significant real estate assets throughout Canada. Rather than selling these to the highest bidder as we are currently doing—hence increasing land costs—lease these lands, using deferment of land income to dramatically reduce the land component of housing development. Use the lower land cost base to favour affordable rental, co-op and strata housing.7

3. Incent older citizens to share, densify or vacate their homes (I’m one of them): I may have mentioned in a previous City Conversation that I was the individual who proposed what became the laneway home idea at the first Ecodensity forum. When city staff came back with unnecessarily expensive and excessive fees and other charges, adding $60,000+8 to the cost of a laneway home in 2009 (more now), I abandoned my project as the mortgage would outlast me. Today, if allowed, I could fairly easily turn my 33’ lot single family home into four reasonable size homes9, three of which would preserve the existing character home, instead of a government-favoured unsightly 3-1/2 storey Small Scale Multiple Unit Housing (SSMUH) project. But unnecessary “upgrades” would add another $200,000+10 to the project cost, making the results unaffordable. Besides, the city would rather I just demolished everything and started over, even though our home has been well maintained for its entire 90 year life span—the most environmentally appropriate home is the one that already exists. Processes need to be straightforward, affordable and support retention.

4. Densify using accepted principles of planning, design and implementation: The BC government, through enacted legislation11, has thrown out the principles12 and practices that created our enviable urban environments in favour of un-neighbourly willy nilly mid rise and high rise everywhere. If it were not for the building code13, the results would be tenements…which might be more affordable, although they were not in 19th century New York City. Use community-based gentle densification to achieve affordability objectives.

5. Tighten rezoning processes and timelines: Wait! the BC government has just eliminated all of that, so all good! Seriously, much reform is needed and there are many citizens other than campaign donors able to contribute to solutions. Again, use gentle densification arising from community consultation to achieve affordability objectives.

6. Use capital gains/ property transfer/inheritance taxes to contribute to funding the above: My generation (I am 74) benefited in most free countries of the world from the largest growth in home value ever. In Canada, folks often say a capital gains tax on homes will defeat any government—possibly true—but so will an outraged cohort of left out or left behind younger citizens, who are increasingly adopting right wing YIMBY14/anti immigrant ideology as they are failed by more liberal approaches. We have the data and statistical analysis methods to allow the development of a nuanced suite of taxes that will raise the money to help affordability without depressing the value of existing homes so much as to be self defeating.

7. Attach conditions to private sector development, especially when funded by crown entities like CMHC: At the moment and for some time CMHC has acted as guarantor of many projects that offer limited affordability gains for most Canadians. We should attach conditions to funded projects that give Canadians real value for their tax money.

8. Stop blaming immigration for all affordability issues—it’s certainly a factor, but not the only factor: I’m not an economist, so will not get into the weeds of TFWs, student visas, etc. This is a favourite villain for right wing politicians at all levels. Address the short falls but don’t scapegoat legitimate immigrants as an excuse for unaffordability.

None of these ideas is new or novel but they must be considered as a suite of recommendations. No single, simplistic recommendation, such as the YIMBY “Build, build, build!” will solve affordability, but the complete absence of integrated, thoughtful solutions chips away at the future of our country. Time to grow a pair.

This post is about 1500 words including footnotes, at least hree times as much as the 3-5 minutes citizens are allowed when they speak to the current Vancouver City Council, in their efforts to suppress democracy. If you appreciated this post, please share to your social media and consider becoming a free subscriber to City Conversations at

Brian Palmquist writes on the traditional, ancestral and unceded lands of the Musqueam people. He is a Vancouver-based architect, building envelope and building code consultant and LEED Accredited Professional (the first green building system). He is semi-retired, still teaching, writing and consulting a bit, but not beholden to any client or city hall. City Conversations mix real discussion with research and observations based on a 50-year career including the planning, design and construction of almost every type and scale of project. He is the author of the Amazon best seller and AIBC Construction Administration course text, “An Architect’s Guide to Construction.” A glutton for punishment, he is threatening to write a book about how we can Embrace, Enhance and Evolve the places where we love to live. Some of its content may appear above.