On Tuesday morning, the BC government made a housing announcement that the mayor of one Metro Vancouver city is not too happy about.
“Our goal for the next 20 communities is to build on the work they are already doing while they continue to implement the recent provincial legislative changes,” said BC Minister of Housing Ravi Kahlon in a statement.
Kahlon’s announcement ruffled New Westminster Mayor Patrick Johnstone’s feathers for several reasons.
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Based on our conversation with Johnstone, it sounds like the province is asking the City to do more than it has the resources to accomplish, and City staff lack the capacity to do what the province is requesting.
“They are asking our staff to take part in some sort of consultation to help them develop new targets. This is problematic for me,” Johnstone told Daily Hive.
“Frankly, we don’t need new orders to get housing built in New Westminster. We are already meeting and exceeding regional growth targets. We’re meeting and exceeding our housing needs.”
The announcement states, “The province will work with these communities to ensure they meet their housing targets, laying the foundation for tens of thousands more homes to be built quicker.”
One sector New Westminster isn’t currently meeting the needs of is in supportive housing.
“I need them to tell me what I need to do to get subsidized and supportive housing built because it surely isn’t just approving it because we have approved it. We are approving it, we are pre-zoning land for supportive housing, we are providing capital support, we are fast-tracking approvals, we are doing everything we can to get it built, and it’s not getting built,” Johnstone said.
“It’s because the province refuses to fund affordable housing at a scale that meets the crisis,” said Johnstone, citing a specific example, a supportive housing project on Sixth Street in New Westminster that hasn’t proceeded despite City approvals dating back to 2021.
“We approve affordable housing. We pre-zoned land for it, we provide capital funds to support it, we have begged the province for it. What more can we do?”
Johnstone told Daily Hive he’d love to sit down with the minister rather than receive information through press releases or letters.
“No more of this Spider-Man pointing at each other, seeing who’s responsible.”
Johnstone would prefer the province pick up the phone and discuss “how we can collaborate better instead of issuing housing target orders.”
When asked about the incoming short-term rental regulations, Johnstone told Daily Hive staff that they haven’t had the time to analyze how the rules might impact the city.
“I can’t imagine it is enough to make a huge difference in our vacancy rate. We have a lot of rentals in New Westminster.”
Johnstone also said their job is to build new purpose-built rentals, pointing out that one advantage is that it’s “really hard to Airbnb.”
He added that long-term rental is what they’ve prioritized building over the last 10 years.
“Prioritizing New Westminster for new housing targets makes no sense when this city has spent more than a decade leading the region in meeting housing needs,” Johnstone said in a release.
“New Westminster has consistently been one of the fastest-growing cities in the region and is now the second-densest city in all of Canada. We lead the region in approving new Secured Market Rental and are doing more than any other city to address the critical rental vacancy crisis in this region. We are one of the few cities that is meeting and exceeding its regional growth strategy targets. We are doing our job getting housing built.”
Johnstone also suggested that if other municipalities were doing what New Westminster has been over the past 20 years to get housing built, “we would not be in a housing crisis right now.”
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