Jun 19, 2025: Social Housing in Every Neighbourhood

Posted at 1:01 pm in City Hall news, Studies & reports, Surveys & petitions, Vancouver Plan by

Last year we told you about the City of Vancouver’s Social Housing and Villages plans, dreamt up by the municipal Planning Department to “improve the lives of citizens.” Both plans — creatures of the Vancouver Plan — have recently come back into focus with the results of a City Talk Vancouver Villages survey and new amendments to the proposed Social Housing initiative.

If you ask City planners, the aim of both plans is to produce affordable housing for thousands of residents who are unable to pay steep Vancouver rents, and to create “complete communities” where residents can find all their basic needs within a five-minute walk.

But if you ask critics of the plans, they are little more than efforts to further densify the City for profit.

At this stage it is important to let City Councillors know what you think about the plans because both will go before Council in October to November of this year. Here is the link to contact all City Councillors.

Vancouver’s social housing initiative/Open houses

The City is hosting open houses for its Social Housing plan:

During the initial plan for the City’s Social Housing proposal in 2024, allowable heights of social housing towers were 15 to18 storeys. In the amended plan, heights have now been raised to 20 storeys. As ever, we must remind ourselves that the City government defines social housing not as a set of services but as a break on full market pricing.

The City believes that towers are more economically viable for non-profits, as many of the current social housing buildings are aging, and the need for housing has substantially increased. This means we can expect to see more evictions in the city. The City seems to be prepared for this as tenant protections are included in the new plan. (Whether these protections will effectively assist and rehouse displaced tenants is another question.) To UKRA’s understanding, these relocation plans are never straightforward for existing tenants. One need look no further than the Broadway Plan to see how relocations and evictions tear tenants’ lives apart.

Yet few would disagree with the idea of providing more affordable housing. It’s important to keep in mind that the City has yet to change its definition of social housing, which is a maximum of 30% below market, and 70% market rental. This suggests that the majority of units built under the aegis of social housing will not, in fact, be social housing.

There are other problems with the plan. BC Housing’s income limits for the private market do not mesh with the actual incomes of average families. Retired architect Brian Palmquist reported last year that many key workers in the city earn too much money to meet the social housing requirements, and not nearly enough to afford the market rental prices. How, then, will new projects envisioned by for-profit developers ever be enough to house those living at or below the poverty line?

Village plans: a short history

When planning for the Villages proposal began, City Hall said its aim was to seek more housing choices and better living environments for residents.

The City targeted 25 areas in low-density neighbourhoods which have some existing retail, but apparently not enough to meet residents’ daily basic needs.  Seventeen of 25 areas will be updated first by adding missing middle housing such as townhouses, multiplexes, and apartments of up to six storeys, with a few exceptions. (Note: If a social housing proposal is located within the Villages areas, eight storeys will be allowed, according to the City.).

The City launched a new survey on Villages (which ended in February of this year) ; details of the feedback have recently been posted on the City’s website. The Planning department said the survey provides “detailed, location-specific insights into how residents view the future of their neighbourhoods.” Sounds like democracy in action, but if you wondered where citizens comes in on all of these City plans, they don’t, because a rezoning will not be needed for most of the social housing plans (sites that are two acres and larger will be required to go through a rezoning). In the same way, residents were never asked which areas should become villages. Critics of the Villages Plan say it is a deliberate attempt by the City to water-down the idea of established neighbourhoods. See this excellent report by retired architect Brian Palmquist.

City surveys, notes Randy Helten of the publication CityHallWatch, make citizens feel that they are the ones influencing policy. “The City pretends to be seeking public input, yet it’s mostly after the framework has been decided, and no one has shown the big picture of how all the pieces fit together and their impacts on people in real life,” Helten said.

As for the survey itself, we found the queries to be questionable at best, vague, extremely confusing, and the results were difficult to interpret. But nothing seems confusing for City planners, because their overall conclusion is that many villages do not meet residents’ daily needs, with uneven access to shops, services, and amenities. And this will be used by the City to justify densification.  

Do we need Villages if we already have neighbourhoods?

 From what we’ve heard, many residents believe that any money injected into strengthening new plans would be better spent on renewing established neighbourhoods, some of which have seen empty storefronts for many years. Steep rents and high taxes continue to push long-standing businesses out of neighbourhoods. On West Broadway, for example, the vintage shop Step Back and Solly’s Bagelry are two of the latest casualties.

And yet, the City is so desperate to push through more housing it is considering allowing developers to defer their Community Amenity Contributions (CACs) that developers pay to the City to fund parks, schools, sewer upgrades, etc.

If City Hall defers the CACs, Vancouver taxpayers would then either be on the hook for millions of dollars or forced to do without vital services. So much for the Planners’ fine words about new Villages, i.e., “the evolution of neighbourhoods into more complete, inclusive, and resilient communities.”