Proposed strategy would analyze market
Christina Montgomery
Province
With angry tenants taking to the streets and affordable housing topping the list of municipal election concerns, Vancouver — where half the population rents — will decide next week on a plan to spend $300,000 and six months on a rental-housing strategy.
One year ago, faced with low vacancy rates and increasing demolition of rental buildings, the city beefed up regulations on conversions of rental units. A rental crisis in the 1980s had led to the initial regulations.
At the same time, staff were asked to launch a “comprehensive” rental-housing study, review the “rate of change” regulations and report back by the end of 2009.
The proposed $300,000 strategy is a piece of that work, aimed at “preservation, replacement [and] monitoring of rental housing based on a thorough analysis and understanding of how the rental market works.”
According to a staff report tabled this month, there are 131,500 “renter households” in Vancouver, or half of all households.
It said 46 per cent of all rental housing in the region, and 27 per cent of all rental housing in the province, is in Vancouver.
Almost half of Vancouver‘s population lives in market rental housing. About 16 per cent of rentals are non-market, or social housing.
As of October 2007, the average rent for a Vancouver studio apartment was $760, and for a one-bedroom $900. Fewer than 700 units in the city rented for under $500.
Vancouver has the lowest vacancy rate in the region, at less than one per cent for four years, and it is projected to remain low.
The preferred vacancy rate is between two and three per cent.
In addition, rising property values have stressed the rental supply, given the higher return developers can earn from condo units.
Figures from 2007 show they can clear about a 40-per-cent return on investment in condos, but only about two per cent on rental units, the report notes.
If approved, the study will assess the rental market by evaluating the importance of purpose-built rental units and determine ways to preserve and expand that stock.
The extent to which rental condos and secondary suites provide an alternative to the traditional rental stock will also be examined.
© The Vancouver Province 2008