Joanne Lee-Young, Vancouver Sun, September 14, 2022 (Includes comments from BCNPHA CEO Jill Atkey)
Over the past seven years, Pitt Meadows and West Vancouver built the fewest rental units per capita of all municipalities in Metro Vancouver, while the City of North Vancouver added the most.
This is the kind of information that can be pulled from a new website that lets voters compare what housing is needed with what has been approved and constructed in 160 municipalities across B.C.
“The most striking thing is that not a single municipality has been able to experience completions that come close to the need and the demand that’s out there. For me, that’s the real story of the data,” said Thom Armstrong, CEO of the Co-op Housing Federation of B.C., which joined the B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association and the Aboriginal Housing Management Association to create the website.
The groups hope information from the database will spur candidates for the municipal elections in October to sign a five-point pledge to streamline the process to build non-profit, Indigenous and co-op housing by cutting red tape and prioritizing land-use decisions as well as protect the existing supply.