Participants: Approximately 80 council candidates from Metro Vancouver municipalities

My role: I was chair of the City of Vancouver’s Renters Advisory Committee at a time when there was a civic election and the lack of affordable rental housing was a key issue, as it had been in Metro Vancouver for many years at the time. At the same time, and based on my observations of council meetings, public hearings and media coverage, I noticed that the housing solutions proposed by many candidates and political parties indicated that they did not fully understand the major obstacles and challenges of actually completing purpose-built rental housing projects. This concerned me in that it suggested that newly elected councillors would have a steep learning curve when it came to advocating for and approving effective rental housing policies in their own communities. And that could result in further delaying the creation of new purpose-built rental housing.

I therefore pitched the idea of our committee collaborating with Landlord BC to hold a free event where council candidates could learn about these obstacles and challenges from a developer with a successful track record of getting that type of housing built. This was an unusual activity for an advisory committee to take on, but the rest of the committee supported it and the City of Vancouver allowed us to do it.

The event was extremely well-received by council candidates from across the region and by a variety of local political parties. Building on its success, Landlord BC went on to host versions of the event in other BC communities.

The Vancouver Courier interviewed me about this event on August 23, 2018: Delivering Rental Housing in Your Comunity.