Minister of Housing Ravi Kahlon was surprised by the city’s decision to abandon fighting a lawsuit claiming the public-hearing process for the rezoning was flawed.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
British Columbia’s housing minister says he is concerned about the future of supportive-housing projects in Vancouver after the city quashed construction plans in a west-side neighbourhood amid a legal battle with residents over the rezoning changes.
The rezoning for the 129-unit, 13-storey project in Kitsilano was rescinded April 30, after a consent order between a local residents’ group and the city essentially overturned a 2022 approval.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail, B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon said he was surprised by the city’s decision to abandon fighting a lawsuit the Kitsilano Coalition for Children and Family Safety Society had brought claiming the city’s public-hearing process for the rezoning was flawed.
“If you don’t want concentrations of supportive housing, but then you don’t want them in Kits, where do you put people?” he said.
Vancouver abandons controversial supportive-housing project in Kitsilano
Earlier this week, Mayor Ken Sim told The Globe that the city is trying to work with the province on finding alternative sites, where two 40- to 60-unit projects could be built that fit in better with the neighbourhoods. Supportive housing provides units to low-income people the way social housing does, but also helps with drug addiction, mental-health counselling, medical visits, lifeskills training and more.
Mr. Kahlon said the province is willing to work with the city but hasn’t seen any “credible” alternatives so far.
“It is frustrating but we’re going back to the drawing board to find alternative sites,” he said, though he added that the province isn’t about to buy out any private-rental development currently on offer as city officials have suggested.
It’s also unfair for some neighbourhoods to declare they’re only interested in housing for seniors or other groups they have decided are less problematic, Mr. Kahlon said.
The city’s move has generated significant reaction, with many supporters saying the site was problematic because it was across the street from a private Catholic elementary school, too close to a women’s rehab centre and would have resulted in too many troubled people in one place.
Supporters have also criticized the province for trying to force disruptive new housing that they claim would be dominated by drug users into every community.
Trey Helton spoke to The Globe in 2021 about the drug crisis on Vancouver's streets.
The Globe and Mail
“This housing, in this location, was not appropriate and the community spoke,” said David Fine, a filmmaker who is a frequent commenter on Kitsilano housing issues on X. “No one is against some form of social or supportive housing there, just not what was being proposed. In this case, Sim made the right decision.”
However, several housing advocates, non-profit housing providers and city councillors are appalled by the move.
“It’s a very scary, telling direction that this council is going. We definitely recognize this is going in the wrong direction,” said Donna-Lynn Rosa, CEO of Atira Women’s Resources Society, which runs multiple supportive-housing buildings in the city. “Less housing, less options is not the solution. We’re just concerned about these motions that seem reckless.”
BC Housing applied to the city four years ago for a rezoning for the building, saying it would provide accessible supportive housing for the many homeless people living in Kitsilano’s parks, on its beaches, or near storefronts.
But thousands of residents expressed concerns that it would draw new drug users and crime to the area and allow for open drug use right across from the school.
OneCity Vancouver Councillor Lucy Maloney said she is going to do whatever she can to support work at city hall to approve supportive housing, after hearing during her recent election campaign that improving the situation for homeless people was one of voters’ top three priorities.
“I have to assess the best way to address the problem that Vancouverites said was their top concern,” she said.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim told The Globe that the city is trying to work with B.C. on finding alternative sites.JONATHAN HAYWARD/The Canadian Press
Ms. Maloney said she was surprised that she learned the news through the Kitsilano residents’ newsletter instead of from the city itself. The decision to abandon the legal fight was made during an in-camera vote earlier this year before new councillors Ms. Maloney and COPE’s Sean Orr were sworn in.
Prominent drug-policy advocate Guy Felicella, a former drug user who champions better treatment and harm reduction, called the move “NIMBYism at is finest,” noting that city residents are constantly calling on the province for more resources to get people off the streets but then reject providing housing for them.