The City of Vancouver is getting into the landlord game in a bid to boost the availability of local rental housing.
Mayor Ken Sim announced the first of five planned developments in a pilot project to use city-owned land to build market rental housing under the umbrella of the new Vancouver Housing Development Office (VHDO).
The first build would be a pair of 54- and 40-storey towers at Hornby and Pacific streets that would deliver an estimated 1,136 rental homes, ranging from studios through three-bedroom units.
“That’s over 1,000 homes for individuals, for families and for workers right in the heart of our city close to jobs, schools and amenities,” Sim said Thursday.
“Too many of our people, young professionals, families and essential workers, are struggling to find a place they can afford to call home in Vancouver.”
Once built, the apartments would be available at market rates for people with a household income between $90,000 and $190,000, according to the city. Tenants will be means tested.
Sim said along with producing new rental housing, the initiative will also deliver a long-term source of non-tax revenue for the city.
Planned sites for market rental housing on city-owned land.
City of Vancouver
Following the Hornby and Pacific project, the city aims to develop purpose-built rentals at four other sites: Granville and Pacific, Main and Terminal, Marpole and 2400 Kingsway.
“We would be developing these projects with partners and we would be running them as market rental buildings with a property management arm and they would run just like any market rental development in the city of Vancouver,” said VHDO’s market rental housing director Brad Foster.
“As far as we are aware we are the only city that’s trying to do this from a market rental point of view.”
The projects are part of the city’s Housing Vancouver strategy, which aims to build 84,000 new homes over a decade.
The City said the projects are in the early stages, so it could not provide an estimate on initial costs to get the program running. However, staff estimate that once the developments are complete, they could generate billions of dollars in revenue.
Each development will need to go through a complete rezoning process followed by public consultation before shovels can hit the ground.
The City hopes to submit the first project for rezoning this spring.