Skip to content

EDITORIAL: Tale of two North Vans

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Dickens wasn’t talking about the North Shore’s housing market when he wrote the opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities.
pic

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Dickens wasn’t talking about the North Shore’s housing market when he wrote the opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities. But, depending on whether you are comfortably housed in a $1-million-plus home or trying desperately to hang on, Dickens’ words are oddly prescient.

On Monday night, City of North Vancouver council voted to advance a 100-unit all-rental project. Some aspects weren’t to council members’ liking: too many one-bedroom units and not enough three-bedroom ones, only 10 units offered at disability rates. But council understood that if the project was to be financially viable, those would have to be the terms.

Around the same time, District of North Vancouver council was voting to establish an affordable housing task force, despite the district already having a rental and affordable housing policy that is barely two years old. It follows the new council voting to cancel two all-below-market housing projects on district-owned land. In the case of the Delbrook Lands proposal, it was largely because it wasn’t to the liking of the well-housed Delbrook Community Association members. What could be more Dickensian than that?

If the district wants more talk, that’s fine. We’d suggest they begin by joining the city’s North Shore Housing Solutions Lab, which is to study how we can house low and moderate income workers. In the meantime, if district council members are serious about addressing affordability, we’d suggest they stop scuttling affordable projects. It is a far, far better thing to build a home than to discuss one.

What are your thoughts? Send us a letter via email by clicking here or post a comment below.