Christina Montgomery
Province
Under increasing fire for social-housing plans that are heavy on announcements and light on bricks and mortar, the City of Vancouver and the province agreed yesterday to fast-track action — on planning.
In what Housing Minister Rich Coleman described as “a bold move,” Vancouver has agreed to take the province up on an offer to pay to speed up approval of up to 1,200 new social- housing units on 12 sites owned by the city. The province agreed in October to pay all “pre-development” costs — architects, lawyers, surveyors, engineers and permit fees. Yesterday, the city agreed to accept the donation, which was not costed.
Coleman said the undetermined amount of money would come from the $41 million he announced in October as part of a plan to “break the cycle of homelessness.”
Last month’s announcement contained no funding set aside for actual construction of housing units. Building the 1,200 units planned for the city-owned sites could cost as much as $300 million, given present construction costs.
Yesterday, Coleman said he hoped the deal to expedite planning would result in a launch of construction on at least six of the city-owned sites within a year.
But the timeline could be tight. The proposal will be tabled at a Nov. 13 city council meeting for referral to a public meeting Dec. 12. Project-specific open houses are planned for early 2008 and will include proposed designs, building programs and management plans.
The first of the projects is likely to come before the Development Permit Board in June, where the public can again comment. If approved, provincial money will begin to flow for professional services.
NDP housing critic David Chudnovsky was shaking his head over the “announcement about planning, not housing. This is the second announcement of nothing,” he said. “[In October], they announced no new homes — in the middle of a homelessness crisis. There’s still no money for new homes. It’s a housing announcement without housing.”
Miloon Kothari, a United Nations housing official, visited the Downtown Eastside recently and said afterward that it was “glaringly apparent in Vancouver that for quite some time . . . successive governments have failed to create the housing that is necessary.”
© The Vancouver Province 2007
