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UPDATED: West End Neighbours society wonders what is affordable

Group opposes City of Vancouver’s rental construction program
WEN
West End Neighbours, Randy Helten and Ginny Richards both directors with WEN outside the courthouse downtown. photo Dan Toulgoet

 

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Susan Griffin heard arguments over the definition of affordable housing April 9 in a dispute between a West End citizens’ group and Vancouver city hall.

WEN Residents Society filed a petition last September, seeking an order to quash the Vision Vancouver-majority city council’s programs aimed at stimulating rental apartment projects.

WEN claims the 2009-enacted Short-Term Incentives for Rental Housing (STIR) program and its 2012 successor, Rental 100, both violate the Vancouver Charter. The bylaws are intended to offer for-profit housing deemed affordable by the city based on the finishing, size, location, design and proposed rents.

City hall granted eligible developers density bonuses and relaxed parking requirements, but WEN claims proposed rents were not enforced. WEN also claims city hall waived $10 million of development cost levies -- a tax on developers to fund sewage, roads, parks and other community amenities -- between 2010 and 2013.

"The goal is market-rate rental housing and also to basically help the development industry," WEN lawyer Nathalie Baker told the court in the first day of two scheduled days at the Law Courts.

Baker told the court the bylaw does not ensure agreed rents are affordable to any group of renters, but instead allows developers to avoid paying DCLs, build smaller units and charge more for rent. WEN court filings claim average West End bachelor suite rents are $902 per month, but a studio apartment of 450 square feet or under at $1,443 per month was deemed affordable by the city.

"They're applying this 30% rule, they're saying it's affordable because people with a moderate income earning category can rent these without paying 30% of their income,” Baker told the court. “Where that 30% rule comes from is CMHC's definition of affordable. That definition doesn't apply to any particular class of renters, it's saying whether you're low income or very high income, you're spending 30% of your income on housing costs."

City of Vancouver lawyer Iain Dixon admitted the concept of affordability is “nebulous” and “relativistic.” It depends on the market and the consumer, he said.  

"Council has been asked to establish what affordable housing is, it's looking at a whole myriad of policy and other considerations and concluded these are affordable,” Dixon said in court. “Unless that definition is clearly outside the ambit of what affordable could possibly mean, it's not open to this court to interfere with it.”

He said that WEN is really interested in contesting rents the group thinks are too high.

"Projects have to be viable for the developers or they don't get built,” he said. “That's why the for-profit is in there.”

The two-day hearing concluded April 10. Griffin reserved her decision.

WEN’s petition is among a spate of court actions by citizens groups frustrated with the Vision Vancouver administration. On March 4, Residents Association Mount Pleasant filed a lawsuit claiming city hall illegally narrowed so-called view cones on sections of Granville and Main streets to allow for taller buildings. Kitsilano residents sought court intervention last November to oppose Park Board’s $2.2 million plan to pave a bike lane through Hadden Park and Kitsilano Beach Park. Park Board announced Feb. 17 it wouldn’t proceed, thus canceling the March 12-13 court hearings.

A hearing is scheduled for May 20 in Cedar Party leader Glen Chernen’s petition aimed at removing Mayor Gregor Robertson from office before November’s civic election.

Chernen claims HootSuite received a non-tendered lease of a civic building in 2012 in return for helping Robertson and Vision win re-election in 2011. Robertson claims the petition is without merit and politically motivated.

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