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Feb. 3, 2006
Housing issue heated
Council nixes project at False Creek site.
PAT JOHNSON
Jewish agencies are expressing disappointment over Vancouver city
council's decision to nix a social housing component in the redevelopment
of Southeast False Creek.
The long-anticipated development of the last significant chunk of
downtown Vancouver property was thrown into turmoil by the election
of a Non-Partisan Association council in November's civic election.
The previous, Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) council had
allocated a significant portion of the development as a mixed neighborhood
of market, social and affordable housing. The social housing component
of the development plan was rejected in a 6-5 vote Jan. 20.
Housing has been a significant issue in the Jewish community in
part because of the work of Yad b'Yad, the Council on Poverty, which
has championed issues of economic justice over the past several
years. As the institutional voice of the Jewish community, Canadian
Jewish Congress addressed Vancouver city council on behalf of the
Jewish community generally, as well as organizations including the
Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, the Jewish Nonprofit Housing
Society, the Jewish Family Service Agency and the Council on Poverty.
According to Canadian Jewish Congress, Pacific Region (CJCPR), all
four communal organizations supported CJCPR in giving voice to the
community's acute concern in relation to the lack of affordable
housing in Vancouver.
About 4,000 people in the Lower Mainland Jewish community live in
households with incomes of less than $30,000. There is a waiting
list of more than 1,000 Jewish families for affordable housing units
in Vancouver.
Gerry Cuttler, CJCPR's general counsel, who addressed council on
behalf of the Jewish community, said his organization is committed
to supporting housing options that suit families with limited incomes.
The housing market in the Vancouver area is one of the most expensive
in the country and the Jewish community is among those affected
by the high cost of housing.
"It is clearly in Vancouver's long- term interest to invest
in affordable housing options for all of its citizens," Cuttler
told the Independent after the vote. "CJCPR urged city
council to focus on taking an important step towards achieving this
objective by ensuring that there is a significant social housing
component in the redevelopment of Southeast False Creek."
The site, which will house Olympic athletes in 2010, will be developed
after the games into a residential neighborhood for about 10,000
residents. Under former NPA and COPE city councils, plans were developed
for an experimental urban development in the 32-hectare (80-acre)
parcel north of First Avenue. A policy statement outlining planned
development was adopted by city council in 1999. Extensive public
consultation resulted in a plan to create a mixed urban community
in southeast False Creek, featuring one-third low-income housing,
one-third middle-income housing and one-third market-rate housing.
The subsidized aspects of the development would have been funded
with $50 million taken from Vancouver's $1.2 billion property endowment
fund, a rainy-day fund that COPE viewed as a legitimate source for
subsidizing housing, but which the NPA did not.
Meanwhile, a new report, the Demographia International Housing Affordability
Survey, calls Vancouver's housing market "severely unaffordable,"
ranking this area's house prices as 15th worst in the world. Vancouver
has a housing affordability index rating of 6.6, which is the median
house price as a ratio to median income.
Pat Johnson is editor of MVOX Multicultural Digest, www.mvox.ca.
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