Find audio versions of Sightline articles on any of your favorite podcast platforms, including Spotify, Google, and Apple. The recent elections in and around Vancouver, British Columbia, created a stir among pro-housing advocates. In one of North America’s most expensive cities to rent or buy a home, numerous parties campaigned on statements that even just … Read more
Find audio versions of Sightline articles on any of your favorite podcast platforms, including Spotify, Google, and Apple. Which North American city will be the first to address its housing crisis with abundant apartments, city-wide? A growing handful of North American states and major cities have been scoring wins in the battle to undo the … Read more
Takeaways British Columbia home prices have soared in recent years, pricing out would-be home buyers and burdening renters while building wealth for homeowners and investors. Three key policies have driven up prices: low property taxes, the principal residence capital gains tax exemption, and the provincial homeowner grant. Leaders in Vancouver and across BC must adopt … Read more
This article is part of the series The Costs of Parking Mandates Find audio versions of Sightline articles on any of your favorite podcast platforms, including Spotify, Google, and Apple. Over the decade since I moved to Portland, I have lived in seven different places. Three of those homes had off-street garages, but I always … Read more
This article is part of the series YIMBYtown 2022 The conversation shared below was part of the YIMBYtown 2022 conference, cohosted by Sightline Institute and Portland: Neighbors Welcome.* Danny Oleksiuk, with Abundant Housing Vancouver, discusses the trends and policies shaping Vancouver’s housing shortage and affordability crisis, followed by Khelsilem, Council Chairperson of the Squamish Nation, … Read more
Takeaways Fossil fuel interests in Canada are taking advantage of the Ukraine crisis to promote Canada’s languishing LNG export industry as a solution to the EU’s dependency on Russian gas. But the EU plans to be fully off Russian gas by 2025: the same year that the first of British Columbia’s five LNG export proposals … Read more
Cities facing housing crises should look to Vancouver. With new kinds of land opening up, Indigenous groups looking to develop their land holdings in the region, and new policies to encourage different and denser housing in many of the 21 cities that compose Metro Vancouver, the region has hundreds of thousands of new homes in … Read more
Takeaways A few things to consider regarding Vancouver’s proposed Secured Rental Policy: Most Vancouver renters were long ago priced out of the detached home market; By relegating most new rental homes to busy streets, the City of Vancouver would double down on exclusionary zoning; Arterial roads have documented health impacts that include higher rates of … Read more
Imagine an American election where Republicans promise billions in transit money for cities, but only if those cities agree to aggressively increase the amount of new housing in their districts. It’s hard to visualize. Yet, in the Canadian election September 20, that’s what the Conservative Party of Canada—a party that, like the Republican Party, has … Read more
Vancouver is perceived throughout North America as a vanguard in refocusing growth in the urban core. But the reality is that for decades, there has been a tragic mismatch between where people want to live—Vancouver proper—and where the region has built most new housing—the surrounding suburbs. Metro Vancouver is currently updating its regional growth strategy, … Read more