From SROs to new condos, affordable housing is foremost on Gregor Robertsons mind heading into Saturdays election.
Robertson and his chief rival, the NPAs Suzanne Anton, agree housing will be the leading issue for the next council, but the two differ greatly on how to alleviate the affordability crisis.
Robertson said the city cannot wait for senior government to step in with programs to build lower-cost housing for working people, so municipal governments must get creative.
Leveraging the citys most valuable asset land is the best way to encourage the private sector to build affordable housing, Robertson said. He noted his council recently pushed through an aggressive plan to build 38,000 units of affordable housing over the next decade by partnering private and non-profit sectors.
If re-elected, Robertson will continue to look for opportunities to produce new rental units, such as his STIR (Short Term Incentives for Rental) program. But he wont require new developments to allocate a percentage to affordable, rental, or social housing through inclusionary zoning. Instead, Vancouver demands Community Amenity Contributions from developers, money that can be put toward housing, parks or childcare. However Robertson could not name a specific affordable housing project that had been financed through the program. A lot of the money is not formally allocated in the rezoning process, it goes into the affordable housing fund at the city and then that money is used to strategically acquire buildings and land for affordable housing.
When it comes to developer contributions to municipal campaigns, Robertson said the practice needs to end and hopes the provincial government will ban union and corporate contributions to combat a perceived conflict of interest in civic politics. Until then, Vision will continue to accept those donations to remain competitive with its rivals. The party currently has no plans to release its donor information ahead of the Nov. 19 election as it did three years ago. It didnt come up in this election as a pressing issue, so we focused on running the campaign, he said.
With the finish line in sight, Robertson said hes unfazed by an NPA poll showing Anton gaining momentum. Voter turnout is his biggest worry, and hes hoping for a turnout far greater than 2008s 31 per cent. Wed like to see a good bump up from that... That gives us the weight of support that is important going into another term.
View a full transcript of this interview here
