Pete Fry

For Vancouver

Tag: HOUSING

  • On Zoning.

    On Zoning.

    During this recent by-election, I really focused on what the city can actually do — within their mandated and legal role.

    Zoning and land-use decisions are the big tools at the city’s disposal. The outrageous land valuation increase detailed in this article is a direct result of the city’s changes to permissible building height and scale — and it’s what is driving a rush on speculation as well as replacement and displacement of actually affordable housing in the West End.

    Until we’ve forced a conversation with the province about reforming BC Assessment, land value tax reform, and new ideas like progressive property taxation and split assessments: considerate and nuanced zoning is the ONLY real tool the city has at its disposal, so we need to do it right.

    In the specific case of the First Baptist: public service and charitable work notwithstanding, they had been operating a commercial parking lot under a residential classification up until now. In fairness, for them to qualify for assessment averaging they should also pay retroactive commercial taxes on their for-pay parking lot. The other option available to them should be some form of tax deferral, that can be paid by the significant revenues expected for Ian Gillespie’s Westbank luxury condo tower approved for that site.

    Hard to guess why previous cases were voted against without seeing records — but the property tax assessment structure is pretty wonky, so until the various deficiencies are addressed at a provincial (read Vancouver Charter) level, the “law is the law”.. there’s a good explanatory graphic attached here (from the mentioned report). I would suggest the obvious route of appeal here should actually be with BC Assessment and the sudden change in tax class.

    Though in this particular case if they have been getting a tax holiday with taxes applied on a residential class on what should have been a commercial classed operation, so unless First Baptist were willing to pay back all the taxes they had dodged on their commercial parking lot I would agree hands are tied as far as tax redress.

    Postscript: 

    Commenting on Original Article
    http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/fumano-churchs-3100-per-cent-tax-hike-highlights-absurdity-of-vancouver-system-expert-says

  • One-bedroom apartment listings in Vancouver now firmly stand at $2,000 a month

    One-bedroom apartment listings in Vancouver now firmly stand at $2,000 a month

    “The biggest issue is what, as a city, we can do for renters,” said Pete Fry…

    “When I say, ‘increase supply’, I know it immediately triggers that Vision Vancouver, NPA kind-of rhetoric,” he said. Fry clarified he’s not arguing in favour of a blank cheque for condo developers to build anything they want.

    “What we need to do is actually slow the kind of supply that we don’t need and really incentivising the kind of supply that we do need,” he explained. “That is a power that we have at the city level, through the approval and rejection of discretionary rezonings and that sort of thing.”

    Read full article: https://www.straight.com/news/977871/one-bedroom-apartment-listings-vanc…

  • Video: A New Fair Deal on Housing, and Five Quick Start Actions to Help Us Get There

    I released a new video today, describing our Green Party goal for a new deal on housing, and announcing five bold quick start actions the City could immediately pursue to ease Vancouver’s housing crisis. We need to shift development in Vancouver. As a city, we must ensure that we are building more housing that’s affordable for local people instead of for the luxury market and speculators.


    Ultimately this means using the city’s power over land use decisions to prioritize purpose-built rental on City and public lands that is truly affordable to local incomes; and on private lands increasing the amount of developer cost levies and contributions to support affordable housing or extracting publicly owned housing outright. 

    But while other parties continue to call for solutions that ultimately require the support of senior government to change tenancy laws, property taxation or invest in public housing. We’ll advocate to senior government for those kinds of actions, but we need to get started right here and right now in our city with things we can actually do. These Five quick start actions the city can do immediately will help get us there and address the urgency of our housing crisis: 

    1. Change city by-laws to make affordable mean affordable: fixing housing prices to local incomes, not market rates.

    Adriane Carr put forward a motion to fix the City’s definition of “affordable housing” to local incomes, but to get it seconded it was weakened to only require only a staff report, not the actual change. With another Green on City Council, we can second this motion and introduce it for public debate under its original intent.

    2. Call for a one-year moratorium on demolition of purpose-built rental housing, and strengthen the Tenant Relocation and Protection Guidelines.

    During the moratorium the city will work on a plan to both retain and restore older affordable apartment buildings as well as build and maintain new purpose-built rental through funding that Greens have been pushing for including re-instating federal tax incentives and creating a new Vancouver Carbon Trust. Update the Tenant Relocation and Protection by-law to ensure landlords aren’t using loopholes to renovict and displace tenants and that residential tenancies are protected city-wide. 


    3. Protect and increase secondary and basement suites by making it easy to legalize them.

    Protect neighbourhoods and affordability while giving new life to old buildings. Secondary and basement suites make up some of Vancouver’s most affordable rental housing. Amend the Secondary Suite Program to encourage secondary suites as incentives for retaining character homes, as opposed to multi-conversion dwelling process typically done by developers under the current framework.

    4. Launch a city-wide plan to involve citizens in deciding how to add density, affordability and “missing middle” housing into their neighbourhoods.


    Planning by spot rezoning and density bonusing instead of a city-wide plan has driven speculation and skyrocketing increases in land prices. Why is Vision so opposed to a city-wide plan? Working collaboratively with communities and neighbours to create a city-wide plan is the only process by which residents can come together on decisions that affect growth, housing and affordability city-wide and in their own neighbourhood. 


    5. Create a Renter’s Office at the City, to better protect and resource the over half Vancouverites who rent their homes.

    Immediately create a department that can provide resources and support for the renters of Vancouver: to provide help with provincial tenancy laws, to ensure homes are safe and landlords adhere to our Standards of Maintenance bylaw, to stop bogus renovictions and to ensure renter’s rights are protected in an increasingly tight and exploitive market.

    Postscript: 

    I’m running to be the Green Party’s second City Councillor. I need your vote, to elect me to join Green Party City Councillor Adriane Carr in this October 14th by-election. Another Green would significantly broaden the ability to introduce and debate new policies, whereas today Carr must rely on conditional support of other parties’ councillors to second her motions, which often involves watering down the motion.

  • B.C. tenants are about to get hit with the largest rent increases allowed in five years

    B.C. tenants are about to get hit with the largest rent increases allowed in five years

    To be clear, these annual rent increases are a direct result of over a decade of inept housing policy by the former BC Liberal government. The failure to reign in a housing market increasingly disconnected from local incomes is 100% on the Clark government.

    That being said, I’d hope the new GreeNDP government makes housing affordability a priority when the House reconvenes in a few weeks. We haven’t heard much as far as commitments on this file, and I urge you to write your MLA and remind them that housing affordability needs to be THE priority for the new government.

    It is important to point out that Vancouver city council don’t have the power to outright legislate rent control, despite what some people are suggesting.

    What council can be (and should be) doing is:
    – through zoning, increase supply of the right kind of (affordable) new housing
    – through building and permits, reduce red tape and regulation that slows and costs housing supply
    – through building, permits, and zoning, protect existing rental supply
    – through zoning move to limit speculation

    There’s more, and of course, council should be advocating senior government to effect changes (like land tax reform and rent control) — but passing the buck to senior government is a poor excuse for ineffective local policy.

    Original story: https://www.straight.com/news/955601/bc-tenants-are-about-get-hit-larges…

  • Why I’m running for City Council

    Why I’m running for City Council

    The following was my speech to the Vancouver Greens, accepting my nomination to run in the October 14 by-election.

    Thanks everyone. Even though I’m being acclaimed tonight, I don’t take this nomination for granted. Thank you for your faith and confidence in me, and in the Green Party of Vancouver.

    I’m proud to stand alongside our Green city councillor Adriane Carr, and Green park board commissioners Stuart Mackinnon and Michael Wiebe, and of course, you the members of the Green Party of Vancouver. 

    When I first ran for city council with the Greens back in 2014, it was because I saw our city was heading in the wrong direction. 

    Vancouver was sacrificing community for commodity, our citizens were disengaged from the city building process, friends and family were simply giving up and leaving town. 

    The issues then: housing affordability, income disparity, the Downtown Eastside, homelessness, communities under threat, red tape and de-spirited micro-managed staff, short term rentals, bogus planning processes —and of course, that soft spot for corruption: the overt financial influence that the real estate industry has over the two big developer parties that run our city. 

    What are aspirations like “Greenest City” when homes are being lost to luxury property investments, and the people who work here are forced to commute from farther and farther afield?
     
    That was 2014, yet here we are today, with pretty much the exact same issues. 

    In fact, most of our problems here in Vancouver are worse today than they were in 2014.

    Vision Vancouver have been running our city like a clique. Talk to community advocates, city staff, and even developers and you’ll hear a common refrain: if you’re not in you’re out. Are we going to continue to allow a city where influence supersedes public engagement ?

    And it’s not like we’ll be any better off with the NPA. They are still beholden to the same developer interests and the same toxic partisanship.

    No, we can do better. In fact we (The Greens) are doing better. 

    Adriane Carr got the most votes of any council candidate in 2014 and has a reputation as the one councillor who actually takes the time to really listen to the citizens who take the time to speak before council. 

    Adriane has been alone on council pushing for resolutions on issues like whistle blower protection, social housing targets that are tied to actual income, transparency around public benefits and so much more. But she’s just one Green on council. 

    Adriane has been doing a great job on council, but she’s on her own. 
    There’s a lot she can do, a lot WE can do with one more Green on council. 

    She needs my help. She needs our help.  

    It’s time to send a message to Vision and the people who seek to commodify our city.
    It’s time for a new deal on housing.
    It’s time to make people our priority.
    It’s time for integrity and fairness and cleaning up city hall.
    It’s time for a city wide plan and a smart green city.
    It’s time to build a better city together, a fair and equitable city where everybody can thrive

    There’s plenty of work to be done over the next two months and we will need your help.

    With your help we can win this by-election, and with your help we can build real momentum for a winning campaign going into next year’s 2018 general election.

    Thank you