The City That Loves Its Housing Crisis

Vancouver is the epicenter of British Columbia’s housing crisis and shortage. So why does the city still effectively ban new apartment buildings on most of its residential land, reserving it exclusively for low-density housing?

While there have been small steps toward reforming single-family zoning in Vancouver in recent years, apartments are still not allowed on more than three quarters of the city’s residential land. Much the same is true in other big, expensive cities in British Columbia and across North America.

Under this decades-old zoning regime, sometimes referred to as the “grand bargain,” apartments are permitted only in relatively narrow segments of a city. New apartment buildings are largely confined to busy roads and areas with older apartments where working-class and poorer folks live, while the wealthiest single-family housing areas are left largely untouched to avoid provoking NIMBY backlash.

The results of this “grand bargain” are perhaps easiest to see from above, as an image from the housing advocacy group, Vancouver Area Neighbours Association, helps illustrate. While Vancouver may conjure images of downtown skyscrapers, the reality is that most of the city’s land area is taken up by single-family houses, which are the most expensive and land-intensive form of market housing.

The BC government has recently shown a willingness to push back on cities applying exclusionary zoning (more on this below), but it hasn’t been prepared to overturn the apartment ban. Persistent exclusionary zoning in cities like Vancouver is deepening the housing crisis and shortage and inflicting damage on Vancouverites and British Columbians — especially renters — in several ways.

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