Housing

The costs of housing continues to outpace the incomes of working individuals and families in Metro Vancouver. Current policy is clearly not working, and more aggressive and proactive solution for affordable housing is desperately needed unless we want to continue to see our friends and families priced out of this community. This does not mean we need to be building more towers everywhere, but instead need to create strong foundations for affordability:
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- creating a definition of affordable housing tied to the minimum wage so that our frontline workers can afford to live here

- pursue more gentle densification of neighbourhoods, including duplexes, triplexes, missing middle housing, coach houses, and in house suites, especially in areas around large public parks, where having a large yard is not as needed

- create a short term rental policy that allows short term rentals (ie: Airbnb,Vrbo, etc) during the summer, as long as the housing become student housing during the school year
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- reduce parking requirements for housing developed along major transit corridors

- allow more flexible building codes for single family homes to allow for multi-generational housing
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- allow developments more densification built near community centres, as long as community amenity contributions go towards updating the community centre

- develop a municipal pet friendly rental housing plan

- develop more partnerships for affordable housing, such as local First Nations, faith based organizations and local community or business groups

- lobby the provincial government for more powers to address the housing needs of North Vancouver, especially given our unique situation as a major tourism destination
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- develop more affordable ownership and rent-to-own housing models

- explore and encourage more alternative building practices, especially ones that may lower costs of housing

- more social housing across the community