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City pays puts in $32 million to subsidize rents for Oly village social housing

April 20th, 2010 · 34 Comments

My fuller story will come later, but here’s my brief summary for now on the city’s plan for the 250 units of social housing at the Olympic village, plus their full report. Enjoy the numbers!

But the basics are: half the housing will get some form of subsidy that ensures the rents are no more than 30 per cent of the renter’s low income; half will be rented out at hefty market rates, with first preference given to key essential-services workers, like police, nurses, firefighters, and others associated with those fields. It’s something London, England, kicked off and has spread to some American cities, though it can appear mystifying how having first crack at a $1,600-a-month one-bedroom is going to solve any affordability issues for anyone. (When there’s zero per cent vacancy and you can’t get an apartment anywhere, then it’s advantage, presumably.)

I hope I haven’t gotten myself banned from city hall by mentioning in my fuller story, coming later,  that city manager Penny Ballem gave us a briefing on the report at city hall today.

I’m not sure why we have to have these “off-the-record” briefings from her. I think it’s to ensure that we get the right information, but don’t quote her because it would steal the limelight from politicians. But thank goodness she’s there.

The mayor got five minutes at the podium at the end of the briefing and his answers on how the market-rental housing would work were so confusing that several reporters thought he was saying that people would have to pay only 20 per cent of their income for one of the market-rental apartments in the village.

For the record, the report says that people whose income exceeds five times the cost of the rent on an apartment should not be allowed to rent there. So if you make $10,000 a month, you won’t be allowed to rent the $1,600-a-month one-bedroom. Only if you make $7,900 or less per month. But it doesn’t mean that if someone who only makes $3,000 a month — only, ha! — decides to rent a one-bedroom apartment, that person isn’t going to get it for $600 a month instead of the normal $1,600.

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Wendy

    question asked, question answered:

    “I’m not sure why we have to have these “off-the-record” briefings from her. ”

    “The mayor got five minutes at the podium at the end of the briefing and his answers on how the market-rental housing would work were so confusing…”

    While Gregor’s life is a great story, I’m increasingly left wondering if he is just a pretty face.

  • Glissando Remmy

    The Thought Of The Day

    “If this is not from the ‘Commies Like Us’ it must be from the ‘Accidental Nurse and the Holly Cocks Gents’ movie.”

    Before you comment further on the subject you may want to have a feel for the story. Here, read on. It sat on my bureau, under a pile of scripts for more than a year and a half…

    THE SUBSIDIZEABLES

    Fade in.

    (Interior. Day. Inside one Olympic Village Condo Building, in front of the Apt. # 2010. Door is ajar. One Policeman, One Fireman, One Doctor, One Construction Worker. All in uniform. The red haired woman that sits in the frame of the door, inside of the apartment, is all smiles. So is everyone else. Her 3” pumps are complemented by a pair of tanned, long legs ending in a white miniskirt; a see through white coat buttoned in front, a visible 36DD embroidered bra and a white cap. Red Cross logo on top. She holds a paint dripping brush in her left hand.)
    Tomasz Stanko’s trumpet is playing in the background.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3owYRAAdeNo
    …

    The Policeman (shades still on, two fingers salute): Maam!
    The Fireman (clasping on to his red suspenders): Maam!
    The Doctor (playing with his stethoscope): Maam!
    The Construction Worker (holding on to his yellow helmet): Maam!
    The Nurse (licking her red upper lip): How can I possibly be of any help to you gentlemen!?
    The Policeman (lowers his shades): I heard a suspicious noise coming from your condo, Maam!
    The Fireman (letting go of his red suspenders): I smelled gas coming from under your door, Maam!
    The Doctor (leaning over to her ear and whispering): It was part of my Family courtesy calls, Maam!
    The Construction Worker (yellow helmet on): The Super told me you might have a leak, Maam!
    The Nurse: So, how come Boys that you are all here together at the same time!?
    The Policeman (shades back on): I’m in #2008, Maam!
    The Fireman (scratching his hairy chest, visible through his unbuttoned shirt): #2009, Maam!
    The Doctor (hands inside his white coat pockets): Right across the hallway in #2011, Maam!
    The Construction Worker (looking down at her legs): Just moved in, #2012, Maam!
    The Nurse: Oh, how rude of me. I’m Devon. Can I offer you ANYTHING!?
    The Policeman (shades off): To Serve and Protect, Maam!
    The Fireman (humming on the Doors tune): Light My Fire, Light My Fire, Maam!
    The Doctor (looking at her cleavage): I took a Hippocratic Oath to cure pain wherever I see it, Maam!
    The Construction Worker (lollypop in his mouth): The Piping Chiropractor at your service, and yes these boots are steel toed, Maam!
    Devon: Well, come on in. Watch your step. I hope you have got protection, Gents. I was in the middle of interior decorating!
    ALL in unison: Don’t worry, Maam, we are professionals!
    (On the way in, one of them asks):
    “So are you a nurse then, Devon?”
    Devon (stops, turns around, winks sensually): Nope! But I could be anything you want me to be Boys! That’s why I bought in here. No one care about what you do or who you do. It’s soo money!
    (As we see them all entering the unit, the camera zooms in on the 2010 number on the door.
    On the Tomasz Stanko’s trumpet deep sound,
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3owYRAAdeNo

    We…

    Fade Out to Black.

    There. Hopefully, I answered out some questions here. If not, tough, eh? What did you expect, you know that…

    We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

  • Michael Geller

    I won’t comment on Wendy’s comment, but I would like to comment on the staff report and the recommendation. This could be a long posting, so you may want to get a coffee and sit down.

    First some background. For 10 years I worked for CMHC and the Ministry of State for Urban Affairs. During this time, I was involved in the preparation of numerous Management Reports and Submissions to Cabinet. One of the challenges of writing these reports was to set out the various options from the perspective of a community planner and ‘housing expert’ in a fair and objective manner. Each option was then evaluated from the perspective of various considerations…planning considerations, financial and social considerations, and yes, political considerations. However, I did not write out the political considerations…that was left to others, including people in the Minister’s office. Although sometimes it was hard for us staff to refrain from offering political advice.

    I’ll never forget the time I was briefing my Minister Andre Ouellette on the Toronto Harbourfront Cabinet document. At one point he stared me in the eye and said “Geller, you’re the planner, I’m the politician. You give me planning advice. I’ll make the political decisions.”

    I share this because when I read the report on the options for the Olympic ‘social housing’ it immediately struck me as overly biased and very unfair, in terms of setting out the pro’s and cons of the various options. It seemed that the authors had made up their mind on which option to recommend, from a political perspective, without a fair consideration of the pros and cons of each options from a planning, social and fiscal perspective . Especially the options related to selling the units, something many people, including myself have been recommending.

    Given that the city went significantly over budget on this housing, and significantly over budget on the other SEFC community elements, including the shoreline, community centre, daycare etc. and faces the possibility of not receiving the full land payment from Millennium (to cover these costs) , or even full repayment of its loan to Millennium (according to some sources), and given other financial challenges facing the city and its taxpayers, this option should have been fully explored. But it wasn’t.

    Instead it is given short consideration as Option 3 c) on p11. The charts show the estimated sales prices at $600 a square foot and $800 a square foot (They range from $384,000 to $1,184,000) There is no discussion on where these revenue estimates come from, and whether they are considered realistic, particularly in relation to the proposed sale prices of the Millennium units.)

    However, assuming these numbers do represent a realistic range, the potential sales revenues are up to $153 million….in other words, if sold at this price, the city could recover all its costs, and have $73 million to put towards social housing, (the profit from the sales, along with the $30 million from VANOC).

    So how is this analyzed? Well there is a reference to having to pay DCL’s of $7.7 million (the city would pay these to itself) resulting in a net return in the range of $28.5 to $66.8 million.

    Now, I would like to think that most reasonable people would say an option that returns up to $66.8 million, rather than require a further expenditure of $32 million would be given some serious consideration, from a staff perspective, but it isn’t.

    There are three bullets describing where alternative affordable housing could be built, but it’s obscure.

    If I had been asked to draft this report, I would note that this option will
    a) allow an increased number of social housing units on sites immediately adjacent to the Olympic Village; or
    b) allow an increased amount of social housing to be built on lands that have been lying vacant for a number of years within the False Creek North and Coal Harbour developments (that’s right, some of the social housing in these communities has not been built out since the city doesn’t have the funds to acquire the sites);
    c) allow for a significant response to the housing needs for the homeless, etc. etc.

    The report briefly discusses Option 3(c) under ‘risk analysis’.

    It notes that this option will require a rezoning and ODP amendment. Is this a risk? Guess who decides if the rezoning would be approved.

    The report then goes on to say “IMMEDIATE LIQUIDATION (My capitals) of the units as strata units may result in lower overall prices within the village, potentially putting the city at risk as the lender to the developer.”

    I find this wording extremely unfortunate and innappropriate. Who is suggesting LIQUIDATION? or IMMEDIATE for that matter.

    Staff are correct in noting that any sale would have to give consideration to the sale of Millennium’s units. (Just as they should note that any market rental of units should give consideration to Millennium’s market rental units.)

    However, if staff had been doing their job they would have pointed out that one option to address this risk would be to sell the units as Leasehold, (as distinct from Freehold) with conditions to avoid competition with the sale of the Millennium units. They could have referenced the Whistler Housing Authority model, or Verdant at SFU, two local examples where this was successfully accomplished. But instead, they ignored these options.

    Instead, they did ‘adopt’ the suggestion that priority be given to emergency workers and other city employees, but only as renters, not as buyers.

    So, to put this in perspective, the city is now going to spend $62 million in subsidies ($30 from VANOC and $32 million from other sources) rather than receive up to $66.8 million. That’s right, in order to accommodate 126 core needy households, and 126 market renters, we are spending $62 million, instead of receiving $66.8 million. That’s a difference of $128.8 million. $128.8 million.

    This is wrong! And I’m very disappointed with the staff for not giving the Councillors a fair description of the options. Hopefully they will ask some questions when the report goes to Council on Thursday.

  • Booge

    Thanks for the analysis Michael! I hope someone now asks the City some tough questions about spending $128.8 million on so few.

  • landlord

    An exclamation point, no less. I nearly fainted when Michael finally got to the point after a very clear and factual discussion of the “plan” .
    $62 Million for 252 units = nearly $250,000 per unit. The City could buy 250 condos and let their pets live there rent free for about the same cost.
    Wrong? This is nuts!

  • MB

    Council needs you, Michael. I hope you run again.

    There is nothing wrong with polititians who have a bout of sober second thought. It’s always a balancing act between social justice and fiscal prudence.

    In this case, there will be little political fallout if Council decides to sell the units at full market price (protecting taxpayers from additional debt), but built affordable housing for citizens and city workers (empahsis on emergency services workers) on less expensive sites nearby.

    It doesn’t have to be complicated.

  • Bill Smolick

    Disgusting.

  • landlord

    Is this the same Council that couldn’t find $3 or 4 Million to cost-share on the HEAT shelters?

  • Sean Bickerton

    In evaluating various options, it’s usually helpful to know the context – what is the city’s overall housing plan?

    How does the Mayor propose to end homelessness, aside from moving people out of sight and out of mind into shelters? What is the budget? What are the metrics, the goals, the measurable progress we should expect to see? How many units of supportive housing are already underway thanks to the hard efforts of the previous administration? 2000 or 3000? How many more are needed?

    My own view is that we’d be better off with mixed-income housing all around the creek, but Michael Geller raises excellent points that should not be dismissed lightly. Partnering with the Province, $130 million could be leveraged into hundreds of millions more. But only if a credible and comprehensive housing plan is forthcoming equal to the Mayor’s promise to end homelessness by 2014.

    There’s only 3 1/2 years left to complete the task. Where is the plan?

  • Slovak Jurek

    Before 1989, ALL former communist countries, the militcja, the secret police, the high ranking party members, the army militars, the medical personnel, and the corrupt judges were given a large number of privileges.
    Central accommodation, service cars, specialty stores acces, free holiday packages, passports …
    That bought the Leader Communists loyalty, spies enforcement power in case of dissent. You all know outcome. Vancouver Vision and their Leader Man Robertson are only showing us their first playing card in a series of perks they are hand out to some categories of people hoping they are going to get electorate to vote their way. What a nightmare. Defect commnism from Eastern Europe, get to Canada, communists moved here!!!

  • Urbanismo

    Jeezless you guys really take yourselves soooooooooooooooo seriously . . . ditto the TX crowd!

    Thanqxz for the relief Glissando

  • MB

    The land is too expensive and the public debt is too high on this site to entertain “affordable” housing. Across the street, maybe. Up the hill a few blocks, most definitely.

    Hey Urbbie, we’re not retired and sailing every day to put everything into a relaxed perspective, yet. And I swear the latte swillers over here upped their intake through the recesion, so things may look a more little jittery these days.

  • Bill Lee

    There’s a moral hazard here.
    Will someone and the media be watching the tenants and make sure that they are ’emergency workers’? Will they be given notice when they leave that job? Will they be able to sub-let to a non-city worker?
    Is there gender equity, in that less that 25 of fire are women, and less than a third of police.
    Will overtime cause rents to rise as with increasing income?

    Yes, we know that the condtions were ill thought out, as in a recent CBC 10 minute political panel that Madame Bula of this salon was in, it was brought up that the heads of the fire and the police unions didn’t know about it before hand.

    They’ve still broken their promise which COPE would not have done.

  • Higgins

    Wow! This whole plan shouts “Perestroika” it’s laughable. Once the doors to this kind of practices are open, there is no way of controlling the favoritism and/ or the bureaucratic corruption. Mark my words. As far as I am concerned, the high echelon Manager with the city… could rent in there if they could find someone, in the right bracket ($100,000) that works in one of the mentioned categories to rent it out for them. Why not rent them to Iraq/ Afghanistan veterans too? No wonder Slovak Jurek @ 10 is freaked out, and for good reason. I would be too if I would have his/ her perspective. But more than anything I am disgusted, and embarrassed for there are people out there caught in the middle of all this debacle in need of accommodation and they are not going to get it because their income is not…high enough. IN other words too poor to be on the “water”. Geller’s post is also self serving (oh look at me how clever I am, how full of ideas I am, bla, bla) Yes we know that,all right, remember the Little Mountain shame and “reunite them with their families” quote?
    The Olympic Village will end up catering to the Chinese underworld and served by expensive whores anyway. Agreed with Urbanismo that… Glissando is laughing not with us but at us. Way to go my friend. We deserve it! And then again maybe it’s a good thing to have the police, firemen and the paramedics all in one place. It will cut out on travel time to attend the shootings. Now you all take care.

  • mary

    A couple of quick points: this will be a nightmare to administer for whichever unfortunate non-profit is saddled with it, unless thre is a ‘wink wink nudge nudge’ understanding that the goals stated in the recommendation won’t actually be measured, and Michael Geller is not completely right about why all of the designated non-market housing hasn’t been built around the other side of False Creek and in Coal Harbour. The main reason is that there are no senior government programs to support the ongoing operating losses that come with such housing. It is not because the City cannot afford the land. And the City does have a homelessness action plan. It calls for a variety of actions, not the least of which is the creation of permanent housing. This Council has been too focused on shelters not on providing homes. The big point that Michael is right about is that City Hall is rife with management who are eager to second guess what the politicians want, or what Penny wants, or what somebody thinks Penny or Gregor want, to the extent that the public gets these poorly presented reports that do not fairly lay out the options and the necessary analysis for people to judge whether we are getting good government or not. Pity. I don’t deserve it. I don’t know anyone who does deserves poor government.

  • michael geller

    Mary, you are quite right…social housing is generally not being built in the city these days because the necessary funds are not forthcoming from the federal and provincial governments. However, if we overcome our ‘addiction’ to deep senior government subsidies, and if the city purchases the social housing sites which are currently lying fallow, there are some creative solutions that could be implemented. They will result in an increased stock of ‘affordable housing’ and create the socially diverse communities which a succession of planners and politicians have been seeking since the mid 70’s, when the first phase redevelopment of South Shore False Creek got underway.

    For example:

    City owned sites could be leased to entities like PAL, the Performing Arts Lodge, which created a wonderful development on Cardero Street, within the Bayshore community, for retired performers and other ‘creatives’ who could not afford to buy or rent on the open market. (They were also attracted to the idea of living together in a building with a small theatre and other communal spaces.)

    An innovative financing model was created which combined ‘life-leases’ with subsidized rentals. Those who purchased the life-lease units got the right to purchase at below market, on the understanding that they would eventually sell their units with little or no profit. The money which they paid, combined with limited contributions from the various levels of government, and the Bayshore developer, and monies raised by PAL, was sufficient to create this ‘non-profit, social housing community’. This is a model that could be replicated on a variety of city owned sites around the city.

    If the city decided to sell the 126 ‘social housing units’ and 126 market rental units at SEFC, it would likely have sufficient funds to purchase a variety of sites and offer seed funding for a broad range of ‘affordable housing’ choices. Some units could accommodate the ‘core needy’ (those in the lowest income quintile); others could accommodate those who can afford to buy something, but can’t afford the fancy market units featuring granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, and costing $700 a foot and up.

    Some of these projects could be developed as ‘cooperatives’ and co-housing. Others could be developed using a ‘shared equity’ model, similar to that common in UK which allow people to get into the housing market by purchasing a portion of a unit…and slowly increasing their percentage of ownership as their financial situation improves.

    Some units could be developed through ‘inclusionary’ programs that require a developer to build a limited number of social housing units, at no cost to government, in return for development bonuses.

    So yes Mary, these sites have remained vacant because staff have not been creative and applied the variety of financing and development innovations that are available (many are well described in the Smart Growth Affordable Housing Toolkit)

    http://www.smartgrowth.bc.ca/Portals/0/Downloads/SGBC_Affordable_Housing_Toolkit.pdf

    Yes, these solutions do often require some financial assistance from other levels of government, but this funding is available, especially for projects on city owned land.

    Sadly, if the city does ‘beg, borrow and steal’ to find the required $32 million from various affordable housing funds to subsidize the SEFC units, there will be little or no money to purchase more sites, or support innovative partnership projects on sites it already has.

    That’s why I’m so upset with the likely Council decision on SEFC. It will set us back many years.

  • Urbanismo

    False Creek south shore worked: thanqxz to Walter Harwick and some others.

    Forty year city leases: social, co-op, market: all mixed in.

    Walter Stanzel built nine storey stratas on Leg-in-Boot Square.

    But that was a different era: we didn’t have the elephant in the room then!

    Shelter, now, has spiralled, inflating beyond local needs. All your fancy tricks are to no avail!

    Even you, Michael, seem reluctant to address that!

    The Elephant? Off-shore money!

  • Dan Cooper

    The idea of selling the Millenium units and building elsewhere is great in theory, but – cynic that I am – I can’t help suspecting that supportive housing would keep getting pushed further and further down the road. “False Creek? Too expensive; we’ll put it somewhere else! Little Mountain, then? No, still too expensive; we’ll put it somewhere else! When and where exactly? Oh, we’ll figure that out eventually….”

  • Michael Geller

    Urbanismo…I agree completely that off-shore money is having a significant impact on the price of housing and land in Metro Vancouver.

    However, rather than support the imposition of controls, similar to Australia, which limited the number of units in a project that could be acquired by ‘off-shore’ purchasers, I would advocate a variety of planning initiatives and innovations which could help bring down the cost of rental and ownership housing.

    These include the pre-zoning of multi-family sites, rather than a ‘let’s make a deal’ approach to zoning; smaller homes on smaller lots, fee simple townhouses, more innovative triplexes, quadraplexes, six-plexes and other novel housing forms.

    In order to increase the rental stock, and supply of non-market units, I continue to suppport partnerships between the public, private and ‘third’ sectors.

    There is no doubt that Vancouver’s land housing prices have increased because a lot of people from outside the province and country have decided our region is a good place to live and invest. But, as the Smart Growth Affordable Housing Toolkit demonstrates, there are solutions that can be implemented to help address the problem.

  • MB

    Michael, thanks for that link to the Toolkit. I’ll file it for future reference.

    Perhaps we need a more democratic approach and stop our reliance on politicians and planners to come up with every answer. They clearly get it wrong on occasion, then are loath to admit a policy failed and provide corrective measures.

    This is an important issue and I’d like to see some kind of public summit to address it.

  • Urbanismo

    @ Michael . . . “because a lot of people from outside the province and country have decided our region is a good place to live . . .”

    Sir, you are being ingenuous!

    People do not plonk C$1m on a West End tear down because they thinq this is a good place to live.

    That is speculation!

    Realtors do not pack off to the China coast to snap up the odd family who thinq this is a good place to live.

    That is speculation.

    Vancouver development is bubbling over and that bodes ill for us all.

  • Urbanismo

    PS . . . or worse . . . DUMPING.

  • Glissando Remmy

    The Thought of The Day

    “The Deaf hears it the clearest. The Mute speaks it the loudest. The Blind sees it the best.”

    The words exchange on this post reminds me of an old joke.

    One “hard of hearing” guy meets with one other “hard of hearing” guy. They both carry fishing rods. The first guy asks “Are you going fishing?” The other guy answers: “No, I’m going fishing!” to which the first guy says:” Oh, I thought you are going fishing!”

    Urbanismo, it seems like some people like to play this game. A lot!

    We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

  • Urbanismo

    “fishing . . . ” Nice parable Glissando . . . clarifies a lot . . .

    “We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.” NO KIDDIN’!

  • Michael Geller

    Urbanismo…people from Mainland China are not just investing here, they are moving here too. Maybe not to Nanaimo, but to many parts of Metro Vancouver. If not full time, at least part time.

    The last two house sales on my street were to people from Mainland China. I just had a chat with my new neighbour across the street….he has moved here from China..

    I hope this clarifies my statement. It is not ingenuous. cheers

  • Urbanismo

    Indeed disingenuous . . . thanqu Michael.

    For the discerning observer you have just made my point!

  • Urbanismo

    PS . . . “clarifies my statement” . . . no it does not!

    Michael, you are far more financially astute than I, yet you dismay me.

    Your street is short and isolated: two new arrived neighbours from the China Coast is a big deal. They must constitute some 10/15% of the neighbors. Does that not ring alarm bells in your very well attuned financial antenna?

    According to CBC news a “tear-down” in the West End sold recently to coast interests for C$1M. The same report showed a young lady scurrying off to sell our real estate in Shanghai. With so many locals having to rent, with you proposing to shove us into shoe boxes, does she not have enough potential clients here without the expense of buzzing thousand of miles?

    Hudson Street developed at an alarming speed, during the nineties: pink monsters all the way from the Crescent nearly to Marpole. All occupied by multiple Chinese families, barely speaking English.

    What’s wrong with China? I hear the weather is great!

    What are these people escaping from? Loaded down with Chairman Bernanke’s worthless paper are they dumping it all on us?

    Are you not concerned that the economy of your own town is so out of kilter: a one-horse real estate game (some call it an industry)?

    Are you not concerned for the rapidly diminishing supply of value adding, job rich manufacturing?

    Fisheries in decline: ask Alexandra Morton! Spawning rivers threatened: ask Rafe about R of R! Logging: Island timber licenses converted into sprawl: for yet more pink monsters. 80% renters in the West End. Sprawl creeping farther and farther east.

    What happened to home ownership?

    Are you still with me?

    Are your new Chineses neighbours home owners or investors? You will never know!

    Are they creating jobs? Are they converting their debased US$ into chunks of our land? You will never know!

    We’ll never get our Bula-blogger’s vacuous little minds to focus: red-hot excitement guessing the name of a Broadway Line, wallowing vicariously in the thrill of kill, kill, kill: Modern Warfare 2!

    Something is very, very wrong with Vancouver and you, sir, know it: disingenuous!

  • landlord

    @Urbanismo : Ease up on the caffeine, man. Lean back on the taff-rail and spark up another doobie.
    Nothing’s wrong with Vancouver. Anybody who can afford to live here got their money the old-fashioned way : they worked for it. That’s exactly the kind of people you want as neighbours. People who have something to contribute, rather than a parasitic sub-class that mealy-mouthed politicians and their enablers can keep as pets in houses we all pay for but can’t inhabit.
    Fish and timber are doomed industries. They have been from the start. That’s inevitable when their raw materials don’t belong to anybody until they’re dead, then they belong to whoever killed them. “Sustainable” is a polite way of saying “It’s too late”.
    Water, hydrocarbons and hydro-electricity are the products that will sustain our future. That and smart people, many of whom choose to live and work here.
    Claims that social Darwinism is evil or unacceptable may be fashionable at retreats on Cortes Island but even there it’s a myth propagated by old, white wealthy people. A secular version of Papal dispensation to assuage the nagging guilt of the hyper-consumer.
    Cities everywhere are begging smart, rich, productive people to move to their towns. Why would we want to keep them out (wherever they come from)?

  • Higgins

    landlord, hmmm, cut the horseshit.
    It’s in your name buddy! If your pseudonym was “tenant” instead of what it really is, your comments would at least had some credible traction. Take Geller…the other “container humanitarian developer” and go fishin’ as Urbanismo suggested in an earlier post. Useless paper buys real estate in Vancouver for more than 15 years now. Your future neighbors from Mainland China are most probably, family members of some Chinese Communist Party leader that are rapidly and anonymously (to their countrymen) burying their illicit earnings in a safe haven, with a non regulated real estate speculating industry, like Vancouver. That makes all “Geller’s” houses go up in value artificially and gives all “landlords” a fat lie and one wicked reason to raise the rents to your young and old, working Vancouver tenants…”market accordingly”. People exploiting others for 20 cents per hour, in their own countries are replacing your neighbors to the right and mostly to the left, shaping your neighborhood accordingly. You don’t want me to tell you what I think keeps Vancouver Real Estate moving. But it’s interesting to observe how a Communist Economy is fueling and throwing line after line to a moribund Capitalist Society. And also to observe people like yourself and the other one continuously denying the obvious. And all for a fistful of dollars.

  • landlord

    It is a source of endless amusement to observe those who have very little money (usually for a good reason) trying to disguise their envy as moral superiority to those who have more.
    As to raising the rent, that is constrained by legislation under the Residential Tenancy Act’s permitted increase this year = 3.2%). All real estate transactions are governed by law and subject to very conservative lending policies on the part of banks which are also regulated. Thus there is no “non-regulated” speculating industry. In fact all investments are speculative. Some make money, others don’t. But of course you would have to have investments to realize this.
    My policy is to charge about 15% below market to responsible, hard-working long-term tenants. That way we both win : they get a break on their shelter costs, I get low turnover.
    Incidentally, I speak a bit of Cantonese and I’m trying to learn Mandarin. You, I presume, are not. Your impressions of the Chinese economy and politics are laughably uninformed. At best they are simplistic and at worst, racist stereotypes. Stop for a moment and ask yourself who loaned China the capital they needed to build the fastest-growing engine of wealth on the planet. Here’s a hint : it wasn’t Joel Solomon.

  • Stephanie

    The old-fashioned route to acquisition of wealth isn’t “working for it”, it’s plunder. With that correction in place, I agree with landlord that Vancouver’s monied class has acquired its wealth in the most traditional of ways.

    Poor landlord:
    Take up the White Man’s Burden–
    And reap his old reward:
    The blame of those ye better,
    The hate of those ye guard.

  • landlord

    @Stephanie : Profit = piracy, eh? A view commonly found among those who have never made a profit. Many years ago, during that golden age of NDP government in BC, a Minister in Premier Clark’s cabinet used to maintain that wealth was not the result of hard work but, as often as not, was a matter of luck.
    Jimmy Pattison (who, in an ironic twist of fate, was later to rescue Mr. Clark from a career as a public-service union apparatchik ) remarked “It may be true, but I find the harder I work, the luckier I get”.

  • Chris Keam

    I don’t think singular examples such as Mr. Pattison can be considered indicative of our economic system as a whole. Many wealthy people started out that way from birth. Many people bust their butt all their lives and never get rich. If anything, the exceptions prove the rule. All economic indicators seem to show the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. It’s hard to imagine how that kind of trend can be attributed to personal rather than systemic factors.

  • Higgins

    landlord,
    First. Educate yourself. Pick up a book once in a while, watch some real deep thoughts documentary (not the Reality TV shows your most definitely watching currently), and face the reality the way it is.
    Second. You say to Stephanie. “Profit = piracy, eh?” You got it! The way the Corporation Act is written, Profit = Piracy (more like larceny, embezzlement, money laundering…). Just ask your buddy’s from Enron, Goldman Sachs, AIG, Freddy Mac, Lehman Brothers, Nike, Bernard Maddoff, great business entities…
    Third. You say that you ask 15% below market rates for your long time tenants. I do not believe this for a millisecond. You want to know why? Because after all you “landlords” united in your quest for more and more, you managed to inflate your rates 75-100% in the past few years. Cutting allegedly 15% is simply… you Thai massaging your ego. Residential Tenancy Act? That’s been trashed and ridiculed in the past three terms in office by your pals the BC Liberals. And they are good teachers too. When they enter their term they CUT, by the end of their term they give back 25%. There. That’s your 15%. Ugly is still ugly.
    Fourth. You speak Cantonese and trying for Mandarin? Good for you. I speak fluently four languages, including both the official ones, English and French. I live in Canada you see. When I plan to travel to a country whose language I do not speak, I buy a dictionary, language tutorial, conversation disk…and I try my best.
    Fifth. Self Regulated industry. I’m talking about the Real Estate Industry. What kind of regulating is there when someone could come from overseas, barely speak the language and pay Cash Down!! $700,000? No name taken , no records checked, no question asked. Nada. That’s your Real Estate buddy right there. Or take the poor 82 year old that’s been swindled by a 25 years pillar of the industry local Realtor? Gave the old man half the market price for his “one” lot only for the crook to put back the property back on the market advertised now as two legal lots. Of course the Realtor played innocent. What did the Regulated Industry did? NADA!
    Sixth. Now you kind a pissed me off. You played the “racist” card on me you total joke! Really? I’ll say it again. Your new neighbors buying million dollars homes money down right off the tarmac are members of the corrupt elite moving their monies out of China. Period. Go on You Tube, type any of the following: Chinese sweatshops, corruption, slavery, employment, human and organ trafficking and give your head a shake. Do you think Walmart, Gap, Nike, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Starbucks, are selling you humanely produced merchandise? Think again.
    200 of the people you’ll see in the following video are making $0.50 / day shift of up to 16 hours/ 7 days a week so that “communist” parody moving on Mr. G’s sunny street can back up his BMW in peace.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2TLl6Nj6Oo
    And here’s a hint for you too: it wasn’t Mao.