Things that could be about Vancouver but aren’t.
Vancouver relies on CAC funding for most of its affordable house building (affordable in this case meaning the closest approximation to social housing that exists in new construction now … until some future time that federal infrastructure/housing money potentially kicks in).
So here is a cautionary tale from the UK, citing examples from Continental Europe where relying on the Private Market to provide affordable/social housing has not worked, and has lead to ever expanding housing prices (this may ring a bell in Vancouver).
Especially as the Little Mountain and Jericho Lands developments get started, it is important to know I think the extent to which they will be useful in providing Affordable Housing. The targets the city applies for Affordable percentages are often missed as it is (recent development which just had an open house at 2nd and Main street, for instance, is less than 10% affordable, and Olympic Village ended up at about 8%).
“A free market approach is more vulnerable in times of crisis: in 2008 foreclosures affected markets with a high share of private stock and less so countries that rely on a mix of private and social models, such as Germany, Netherlands or Austria.
If the UK doesn’t want to see its citizens emigrating in search of a decent place to live, it might want to consider not selling its stake in housing associations and instead, managing it better.
It could also look for other ways to revitalise housebuilding. Austria has operated limited profit housing associations and given public subsidies to brick and mortar producers to stimulate construction. Today, its public expenditure on housing is less than half that in the UK, subsidies and allowances included – while construction output is twice as high.”
http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/nov/24/privatising-uk-social-housing-associations-europe?CMP=ema-1703&CMP=
The Vienna model in particular is one which Vancouver, being a large landowner in the city, could emulate. Here’s information on the Vienna Development Model, I think it would be one which either the City of Vancouver itself, or Vancity could adopt, maybe with the tie-in to using School-Board land in a manner that the province couldn’t monetize – for instance by making the development on that site into specifically non-profit development. The manner of dealing with developers seems to one which shifts the balance of power from the developer to the landholder, and by fostering an environment where developers compete to simply get a proposal, rather than competing directly for condo purchase, would do a great deal to improve the diversity of design proposals I would hope.
Here are some articles on the Vienna model:
http://www.governing.com/topics/economic-dev/gov-affordable-luxurious-housing-in-vienna.html
http://www.shareable.net/blog/public-housing-works-lessons-from-vienna-and-singapore
This one links to a couple of interesting publications:
http://vbn.aau.dk/files/13671493/SocialHousingInEurope.pdf – which has a chapter on the Austrian model
http://www.urbel.com/documents/becki%20stan_katalolg.e.pdf – which is all about the vienna model itself
https://www.wien.gv.at/english/housing/promotion/pdf/socialhous.pdf
