One City Might Have Just Cracked the Housing Crisis

By Binyamin Appelbaum of The New York Times. Excerpts:

"The Canadian government has returned 10 acres in the middle of Vancouver to the Squamish, the First Nation whose ancestors lived there. On that land, the Squamish are building the densest residential neighborhood in the country."

"Cities have largely lost the power to say yes to construction. To prevent officials from acting against the public interest, we have drained them of the power to act in the public interest. Every decision can be appealed, every complaint must be heard, every objection weighed. We are so committed to fairness that we have lost sight of the unfairness of doing nothing."

"Freed from Vancouver’s rules, the Squamish are providing the city’s residents with a chunk of the housing they so desperately need."

"Vancouver, like most cities, prioritized the interests of homeowners at the expense of everyone else"

"It works hard to prevent the replacement of houses with apartment buildings. Sometimes it even replaces apartment buildings with houses. There is an eight-unit apartment building a few blocks from Senakw on the verge of falling down. Under the city’s land-use laws, however, it cannot be replaced by a new eight-unit apartment building. A developer has proposed building three mansions instead." 

"The current generation of Squamish, raised on stories of the old Senakw village, now had the chance to build anew. They could have built single-family homes. They could have built office towers or a shopping mall. They ultimately decided to build a better version of Vancouver."

"The result was a project with more than 6,000 housing units in towers as high as 58 stories"

"Senakw “is literally what the market wants,” said Thomas Davidoff, a professor of real estate finance at the University of British Columbia who supports the project."

"The nation’s leaders frankly acknowledge that money was their most important motivation. The project was a chance for the nation to participate in Vancouver’s pre-eminent industry: real estate development. That is exactly how the economy is supposed to work. To paraphrase Adam Smith, it is not from the benevolence of real estate developers that we expect our housing, but from their regard for their own self-interest. The Squamish are going to make a lot of money, and Vancouver is going to get a lot of new housing."

"Vancouver has moved to reduce its parking requirements and to allow larger buildings in some areas."

"“Restrictive zoning has been pushing people farther and farther away from the communities that they love,” said Christine Boyle, a former Vancouver city councilor who is now housing minister for British Columbia."