By Carol Volkart
Vancouver City Council has killed a plan that would have allowed 20-storey social housing towers through much of the city, including Dunbar, agreeing with critics that it covered too much territory and didn’t have enough public support.
Tuesday’s vote was 7-3, with ABC-majority councillors approving an amendment to improve an existing fast-track program to cut timelines for eligible social housing.
OneCity, COPE and Green party councillors opposed the amendment, saying the original plan was crucial because of the need for more social housing across the city. COPE’s Sean Orr urged council “not to step on a rake on this one.”
The Social Housing Initiative has been underway since December of 2022, when the newly elected ABC-majority council unanimously agreed staff should begin work on it. At the time, they gave a round of applause to then-OneCity councillor Christine Boyle, who had revived it after the previous council shot down a similar motion. Boyle is now NDP housing minister.
But by the time the plan arrived at City Council for a public hearing on Nov. 27, it had grown to 20 storeys from the initial proposal of 12, and would have meant social housing could be built with no public hearings on half of the city’s residential land area. One-third of that area would have allowed 20-storey towers, and about 20 percent would have allowed six storeys.
Public support had changed too. An initial engagement survey in the fall of 2024 showed about 60 percent support. A second round of engagement in the spring/summer of 2025 showed about 60 percent opposed.
At the public hearing, clearly spooked ABC councillors questioned the amount of territory the plan covered, especially since staff said only about 10 social housing projects are built each year, a number not expected to increase. ABC Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung compared it to “boiling the ocean” to get 10 glasses of desalinated water.
By decision day on Dec. 9, the criticisms were even sharper. ABC Coun. Lenny Zhou noted that he’s very pro-development, having voted in favour of “every single housing” project that’s gone to public hearing in his three-year term. But he said this plan is “too much all at once. The initiative would fundamentally reshape our city.”
Kirby-Yung said everyone wants more affordable housing, but “social housing does require social licence. There was overwhelming opposition to this.”