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b.c. housing minister: 'it was always clear' 20% of development was to be affordable — except it wasn't
vaughn palmer: housing minister explains why most of the units in a government-subsidized 'affordable' rental housing project are not really affordable.
aug 9 2024
4 minute read
housing minister ravi kahlon.
darryl dyck
/
the canadian press
victoria — housing minister ravi kahlon surfaced this week to explain why most of the units in a government-subsidized “affordable” rental housing project in vancouver are not really affordable.
kahlon was responding to the news that 54 of the 68 units in a project opening next month at larch street and west 2nd avenue in kitsilano will rent for between $2,650 and $4,300 a month.
his defence: the news media should stop reporting on the units priced at high-end rates and instead focus on the 14 of 68 units that are set aside for renters with moderate incomes.
“the 14 are the 20 per cent of the units that are part of the affordable plan,” kahlon told jas johal on cknw radio thursday. “there’s one-bedroom units that are going for $1,500 and two-bedroom units that are going for less than $2,000. that’s substantially less than market.”
if only 14 of 68 units were actually within reach of those with moderate incomes, the new democrats have surely oversold the “affordability” aspect of the project, no?
not at all insisted kahlon. “it was always clear that 20 per cent of the units were going to be the affordable units,” he told the radio audience.
alas for the minister, that is not how the project was portrayed when it was announced by his predecessor as housing minister, now premier david eby.
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the news release, still online on the government website and dated dec. 16, 2021, was headlined: “new affordable rental homes on the way in kitsilano.”
the opening paragraph said: “another affordable rental housing building will soon be available for people in vancouver, with construction underway on a project that will offer 68 new homes in kitsilano.”
eby himself was quoted as touting the entire project as an example of the ndp responding “quickly to an ongoing affordability crisis.” his release contained a dozen references to “affordable” and “affordability.”
nowhere did he acknowledge that only 14 of the 68 units would be actually, you know, affordable.
the 14 units referred to be kahlon were to be “tenanted at moderate-income rent levels to households earning less than $80,000 a year.”
but the other 54 units were also going to rent “at or below” market rates, and thus be within reach of “middle-income households.”
by the government’s revised reckoning, the 54 units will only be affordable at household incomes between $132,000 and $192,000. those thresholds will put the units out of reach of 75 per cent of people in the market for rental housing in vancouver, according to sfu urban planner andy yan.
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“you can create a supply of ferraris, but the fact is that people can only afford hondas,” was yan’s devastating comment to katie derosa of the cbc this week.
while the housing minister struggled to keep alive the claim of affordability for the ndp’s $2 billion housing hub program, b.c. housing, the delivery agency, appears to have abandoned the notion in the case of larch street and related projects.
“the housinghub program is a supply-based program. it’s not an affordability program, ” b.c. housing vice-president michael pistrin admitted to kerry gold of the globe and mail. “the whole intent of the housinghub was just to build more housing. and it was intended to be market (rate) rental housing. it’s not supposed to be below market at all. it is supposed to be ‘at market’ for the most part.”
kahlon is now heavily engaged in an election year rebranding of the housinghub, now called b.c. builds.
the successor program will marshal public land and financing with a goal of “securing of rental affordability at prescribed levels.”
prescribed by the government, one assumes, and based on the larch street project, that could also mean “out of reach” for most renters.
the revised program will still need to include partnerships with developers “to create some level of affordability where otherwise they would just do whatever they were going to do anyways and we get nothing out of it,” he said.
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“anyone that suggests that we’re going to be able to solve the housing crisis without increasing some form of housing supply is dreaming,” he said. “i do feel hopeful that we’re turning that corner, but we still have more work to do.”
turning the corner, 14 affordable units at a time, it would seem.
by way of consolation, kahlon claimed the larch street project was being accomplished at no cost to taxpayers.
“this program is not going to solve the housing crisis in itself,” he conceded. “but at no cost to taxpayer dollars — there’s zero cost of taxpayer dollars — we’re able to get 14 affordable homes.”
the province advanced $31.8 million in a low-interest loan to the project developer on terms and conditions that have not been disclosed in detail. provincial financing is not free money, much as the new democrats would have it.
by kahlon’s math, that’s $2.3 million in provincial-backed low-interest financing for every one of the 14 units, raising the question of whether the program is affordable to taxpayers, never mind renters.
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