This week the province introduced plans to give municipalities a bold new power that they’ve been asking for – the ability to designate properties as rental-only zones. This could be described as “downloading” at its best – giving the governments closest to the problem a tool to do something about it.
Quite apart from the affordability crisis in home ownership, well documented in the Lower Mainland, a rental crisis also exists. Vacancy rates are less than one per cent and rents have shot up sky high, even for the most meagre accommodations.
Families are being renovicted, forced into bidding wars with other prospective tenants and made to stand in line with hordes of others just to see an apartment – never mind filling out the “applications” from which landlords cherry pick tenants.
As we’ve seen on the North Shore, older affordable rentals are also increasingly under threat of being torn down and redeveloped.
The problem has been exacerbated by the fact the private sector basically stopped constructing rental-only buildings more than 30 years ago when federal incentives dried up. The market has clearly not regulated itself well on this issue. It makes sense for government to assist. Response from developers to the idea has been tepid. There’s also been a suggestion that rental-only zones could lead to ghetto-ization. That worries far less than the status quo, which is families with nowhere to go. No municipality will be forced to zone for rental only. That will be up to local councils. It’s a big power for the province to grant and will be good tool in the municipal toolbox.
We hope local governments step up and use it wisely.
