Housing For All

Housing for All

We will advance construction of affordable housing on city land, create reliable, permissive rules to increase housing choice across the city, protect tenants from eviction, and take meaningful steps to help our neighbours get out of chronic homelessness.

• The Peoples’ Builder – OneCity will construct 4,000 affordable homes on city-owned land, leveraging federal funding, innovative construction methods, and reinvestment for ongoing benefit.

• Housing Choice – OneCity will end Vancouver's apartment ban and allow 4 floors and corner stores in every neighbourhood, and 6 floors near city centres and where local neighbourhood conditions support it – so that you get a real choice in where you live.

• Clear, Simple Rules – OneCity will fix the outdated rules so it’s cheaper and easier to build good housing. That means legalizing apartments on small lots, removing unnecessary setback requirements, legalizing courtyards, and expanding single-stair allowances citywide.

• Housing Near Services – OneCity will allow mid-size apartments close to services and high-streets like Main and 4th Ave, so businesses have more customers and more people have easy access to the shops, restaurants, and services they need.

• Finish the Vancouver Plan – OneCity will finish the job of actually planning for our city that ABC couldn’t by fixing problem areas and bringing our neighbours along.

Protect Affordability

Renters make up half of Vancouver’s population, and we need to ensure we:

• Protect Existing Affordability – OneCity will create a fund to acquire and protect affordable housing from unnecessary redevelopment to market rents.

• Citywide Tenant Protections – OneCity will protect neighbours across the city by expanding the Tenant Relocation and Protection Policy (TRPP) citywide, and cut the time to qualify for protections down to six months from a year.

• Bring Back the Renters’ Office – We'll instate a bigger, better, badder office to support renters: we’ll actually fund it, hire staff to defend renters, work with legal advocates, and proactively monitor landlords and developers to make sure they’re following the rules.  

• Put Land Into Community Trusts – We need to use the land we’ve got left for the most public good possible. Vancouver already has Community Land Trusts like the False Creek Community Housing Trust. We’ll take what we know works and create a new city-wide Community Land Trust Support strategy so the community is first in line to buy land when it comes up for sale and can get the funding necessary to build non-market and affordable homes speculators can’t touch.

• Make Developers Pay for Delays – OneCity will ensure that replacement housing isn’t delayed by decades by enforcing timelines and extending rent-top ups. 

• Every Pet Gets to Come Home – OneCity will push to end ‘no pet’ clauses in stratas and leases and make it easier to find a home for you and your four-legged friend.  

A Way Home

It is unacceptable that in a wealthy city like Vancouver, people are sleeping rough. ABC has chosen to vilify our most vulnerable neighbours instead of helping them. OneCity will enact proven strategies to reduce homelessness and care for our neighbours: 

• End the Supportive Housing Ban – OneCity will expand the kinds of housing and supports that will actually get people off the streets and into a stable place heal and thrive. 

• Create Safe Shelter Options – OneCity will create a Vancouver Shelter Standard to encourage new and existing shelters to meet the cultural and community needs of Indigenous, Two Spirit, and gender diverse people who too often don’t feel safe in shelters or on the street.    

• Tackle Drug Harm – OneCity will expand treatment centres, low-barrier non-profit recovery houses, and evidence-informed harm reduction education so that addiction doesn’t prevent folks from finding secure housing and employment.

What this means for you: You don’t have to move to Burnaby to afford a home big enough for your new baby, you don’t have to leave your community to downsize into a smaller home, and you don’t have to leave the city to find an apartment that you can afford. You won’t be forced out of your neighbourhood if your building is being redeveloped, and you’ll have real support at the city to navigate laws around tenancy and eviction. If you fall on hard times, there will be a path for you to get back up in Vancouver.