Vancouver: City Council’s vote to change zoning laws to build more rental housing is a watershed moment for our city – a decision will make a huge difference for renters today and help build a more liveable, sustainable and affordable city for generations to come.

I want to thank the people of Vancouver for engaging in this important discussion and City staff for their hard work to help see it through.

The decision to allow for more rental housing also highlights a fundamental choice between two competing visions for Vancouver’s future – a progressive vision that builds a city that everyone can call home, or a backward-looking vision that prices renters, families, and middle-income residents out of the city. 

I know where I stand. 

Affordable housing is personal for me. When I was a kid, my family fell on hard times, and we lost our home.  And since day one, I have made building more affordable housing a top priority:

• The record $1-billion dollars we’ve secured to build 10,000 homes is going to give hope to seniors, working families and everyone looking for a place to call home.
• The tough new measures we’ve put in place to protect against evictions and demovictions mean that people, many of them on low incomes, will be able to keep their home.
  
• By tripling the empty homes tax, we’ve forced speculators to sell or rent more than 4,000 homes to Vancouver residents.
• We are now aggressively cutting red tape and streamlining the development process to get people into new homes faster.
• We’ve kick started the revitalization of the co-op housing movement.
• And I have announced Making Home - a plan to build 10,000 new homes the middle class can afford.

When you put it all together, it’s the most ambitious affordable housing agenda in Vancouver’s history. Moreover, these bold land-use decisions are the core of our world-leading climate plan that will reduce emissions, as we create walkable complete communities. But as much as we’ve accomplished, we all know we have a lot more work to do to build a Vancouver where everyone can afford to live.  

That’s why in January,  I will be calling on City Council to support my Making Home plan to build on our momentum.

Because together, we can – and we are – building a Vancouver that works for all.  

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For more information, please contact:

Mark Hosak
(he/him)
Executive Director
Team Kennedy Stewart Vancouver
[email protected]