This is a very niche Vancouver post.
Vancouver’s holding a by-election on April 5, and people keep telling me they’re planning on voting for Sean Orr. As someone who’s been involved in housing politics for a little while, I think that’s a bad idea. I remember his column where he would constantly rage against new housing, and I’m not sure everyone else does. Here are some of his greatest hits (emphasis mine):
Meanwhile, a case study on why more rental supply doesn’t mean lower rents… The report completely validates Jean Swanson’s position against construction of new rentals at City Hall.
What kind of housing supply? Housing supply for whom? For what income bracket? We don’t have a supply problem. We have a supply of low-income housing problem. We have a speculation problem. We have a short-term rental problem. We have a wage problem.
This should obliterate any and all YIMBY arguments about supply, but they’re like terrible flat-earthers who – when presented cold hard data – instantly put on their dollar tinted sunglasses and blurt out something about “incentives to developers” and plant their dumb ostrich heads back into the sand.
November 12, 2019, on Senakw:
Yeah, but it’s not because we lack density either. Indeed, there’s no notion as to whether or not any of these units will be affordable. While flaunting Vancouver’s oppressive regulations on parking spaces is certainly laudable, it’s telling that the YIMBYs are salivating at this development…
Rental 100 is a sham and only non-market housing will help with affordability.
Spoiler: It’s the supplyists. Like this guy, head of Abundant Housing Vancouver (a developer front group)
(I admit that I took personal offence to this as a cofounder of AHV. We are not a “developer front group.”)
Please show me where building luxury condos has had a trickle down effect on affordability. I’ll wait.
5-storey rental apartment approved for Kitsilano. “We have a less than one per cent vacancy rate. We need rental,” said Rebecca Bligh. “There’s no displacement here. Zero. We don’t often see that.” Ok…first, there are only 13 below-market units, none of which are over 921 square feet. Second, below-market rates for Kits means jack shit. And third, that is such a sophomoric understanding of the mechanisms of displacement. Land values displace people. This will increase land values.
I thought this one was especially clarifying; if it’s bad for churches to build apartments on their own land where nobody currently lives, where can we build new apartments?
Takeaway
If you believe that market-rate housing is always bad and we should only build social housing, Sean’s probably a good candidate for you. If, like me, you believe that more housing supply is good and would like to move into a newer condo or apartment someday, he is probably not.
