It’s now up to the mayor to deal with the costly dilemma
Miro Cernetig
Sun
Where’s bankruptcy court? I want to get in line.
Not because I’m actually going broke. I’m just thinking it might be a way to move closer to Vancouver‘s downtown waterfront.
Yes, I’m musing about getting on the Olympic Athletes’ Village social housing list. It’s quite the deal.
A few days ago, I had a tour of the $1-billion Olympic village. Sadly, I’ll never afford the $6-million penthouses. But the City of Vancouver‘s brain trust has managed to build us some of the slickest social housing on the planet.
As you may have heard, Vancouver‘s taxpayers now face a $110-million bill for 252 units of “affordable housing.” That’s $77 million over budget — or about $436,000 a unit.
But it’s more, really. Add in the approximately $40 million in free city land and you can pretty much count on Olympic social housing costing $595,000 apiece, or about $540 a square foot. That’s at least double normal cost.
As you might expect, our Olympic social housing is something to behold. I viewed a south-facing, one-bedroom on the ground floor, with 12-foot ceilings and panoramic windows looking out onto a street 100 metres from the water.
Its exterior was sheathed in what my guide described as “Swiss pearl” panels and etched glass.
The pad I had my eye on was the epitome of green living, too. It’s “LEED Gold,” meaning “thicker walls, high performance glazing, solar shades, ‘hydronic‘ or water based heating, a radiant heating system and green roofs.” There are even sky-gardens, plots on the roof to grow veggies as you take in the view.
All of those “elements” add $32,000 a unit, according to a city report. That’s about $180 a month to the taxpayer, if the city financed it over a 30-year mortgage at today’s rates.
Now, I’m not suggesting we don’t need more social housing in the city. A healthy society invests in helping less fortunate. But the budget was blown sky-high on this one.
Here’s some more sobering math: Assuming the cost of Olympic social housing is $150 million ($110 million in construction plus $40 million in land), each unit would have to rent out at $3,200 a month to pay out that 30-year mortgage. Clearly that’s unsustainable when social housing’s monthly rents are measured in the hundreds of dollars.
So we now have a defining moment for Mayor Gregor Robertson.
He campaigned on the worthy ideal of ending homelessness.
Yet city administrators have told him the city’s highest-profile social-housing development might break the city budget. Inside the mayor’s office, the debate is now how to squeeze out of the Olympic social housing quagmire.
The likely plan is to sell off the social housing or perhaps turn it into market rentals.
The mayor’s idea is the sale will pay for the enormous cost overruns. Leftover dollars would be earmarked for building replacement social housing, at a more realistic price, perhaps in nearby areas of False Creek or elsewhere in the city.
How does Mayor Robertson sell that hardball without creating a revolt within the hard-left elements of his coalition? They are the vocal minority who so often spout the nostrum that the poor must have the right to live on the waterfront, just like the rich.
Perhaps by showing he understands that such mushy, utopian thinking — and the past politicians of the left and right who felt pressured to put green-plated public housing in a high-end waterfront development — is what got us into this hobbling financial mess.
Mayor Robertson needs to get the city out of the Olympic social housing, fast. It’s an indefensible sinkhole.
Then he should take a non-partisan breath. Real-estate prices are falling. So are construction costs. Time will be on the mayor’s side. He’ll be able to build more homes for the poor if he — unlike our last city hall’s leaders — does his homework and uses the public purse judiciously.
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