Despite CHS data showing that residents lean into community amenities as dwelling units increased in price and shrunk in size, Vancouver's comprehensive Broadway corridor growth plan comes up short.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Vancouver area residents are far more dissatisfied with their homes than people in Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. And while they still get satisfaction from their neighbourhoods, that could change if policy-makers don’t step it up, say urban designers and planners.
Data from the Canadian Housing Survey, compiled into charts by Simon Fraser University urban studies associate professor and planner Andy Yan, show that 21 per cent of respondents – renters and homeowners – in Metro Vancouver rate their dwellings on a scale of zero to five, out of a score of 10. About one quarter of Metro Vancouverites rate their homes a six or seven. The only other urban area that comes close to that level of dissatisfaction is Toronto, where 16.6 per cent of residents, both homeowners and renters, consider their dwellings a “less than five,” and 25 per cent give their homes a six or seven. Montreal, Ottawa and Calgary residents gave the highest marks for their dwellings and are especially satisfied with their neighbourhoods.
In Metro Vancouver, renters are particularly dissatisfied, with 30 per cent rating their homes zero to five. However, 64 per cent of renter respondents scored their neighbourhoods 8, 9 or 10, which speaks to the importance of community, said Prof. Yan, who presented his findings to the 2025 annual meeting of the British Columbia Society of Landscape Architects this month.
“Compared to the rest of the country, it turns out many people in Vancouver aren’t overly satisfied with their dwellings,” said Prof. Yan. “We may not live in castles, but we live in villages. There is a higher satisfaction with neighbourhoods than dwellings, especially for renters, even when factoring in the margin of error,” he added. “[The findings] send a warning that you need to consider neighbourhoods, and especially when municipal governments in B.C. are entering an election year in 2026. This could be one of those hot-button issues that decides who wins and who loses.”
Retired architect Scot Hein, former senior urban designer for the City of Vancouver, said while it’s easy to deduce the reasons for renter dissatisfaction – such as the lack of availability and the disconnect between housing and incomes – there’s a subtext to the findings, which are based on a 2022 CHS survey. That survey was the last to show the breakdown between metropolitan areas.
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“The first thing that jumped out at me was there is a lot of stuff going on behind these graphs that no one is really talking about,” said Mr. Hein, who continues to support community groups, non-profits and housing trusts with his decades of experience.
“Here’s a question: If neighbourhoods are beloved – and I’ll ask this rhetorically – why do politicians hate them?”
Mr. Hein refers to what many former city planners and urban designers see as the erasure of clearly defined neighbourhoods, and policies that aim to blanket zone for generic housing forms and densities across all neighbourhoods, particularly the high-rise tower. Instead of working with a city of distinct neighbourhoods, and starting with what matters to those communities, policy-makers are choosing to let the real estate market guide decisions on growth. He cites the example of a government-funded report called Opening Doors, the result of an “expert panel on the future of housing supply and affordability,” released in 2021. In it, the authors aim directly at residents who oppose higher density.
They criticize neighbourhood volunteers who get in the way of zoning changes for higher density redevelopment: “Of course, not all homeowners oppose zoning changes to permit higher density redevelopment in their neighbourhoods. However, there are invariably vocal groups of residents – particularly neighbourhood associations – that can make it politically difficult for local governments to implement such changes.”
“The pendulum has swung so far toward ‘the market rules,’” said Mr. Hein, who worked on the Arbutus Walk neighbourhood on Arbutus near 12th Avenue, a dense mid-rise collection of condos and green space that has proved highly livable over the years.
In Metro Vancouver, renters are particularly dissatisfied with their homes, with 30 per cent rating them 0 to 5 on a 10-point scale.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
The “generic towers and multiplexes” touted as the new density by city hall and the province are “primarily about monetizing assets,” he said.
Any politician who favours the market over neighbourhood planning is misguided, he believes, because neighbourhoods are the foundation of civic life. The CHS data show that residents have leaned into their community amenities as dwelling units increased in price and shrunk in size. And yet, as critics pointed out, the Broadway Plan, the City of Vancouver’s comprehensive plan to guide growth around the Broadway Subway, came up short on amenities such as parks and community centres, emphasizing redevelopment and a one-size-fits-all approach to density.
“It’s politically unwise to turn your back on neighbourhoods, as these graphs show,” said Mr. Hein.
Developer and planner Michael Geller publicly criticized the Broadway Plan as upsetting the livability of Kitsilano and Mount Pleasant neighbourhoods, displacing renters and offering them poorly designed, tiny new rental units in return. He wrote directly to the city about a tower project at 2100 W. 14th Ave., which he criticized for the livability of the rental units. He also criticized unit sizes at a 68-unit rental building at 1807 Larch St., which received low-interest-rate government financing.
Planner Sandy James also pointed out that the Broadway Plan and the province’s Transit Oriented Development Areas program, which call for towers around transit hubs, fail to emphasize neighbourhoods.
“In a city like Vancouver, these neighbourhoods can be the size of small towns,” offering residents everything they need within a short distance, she said.
The significant dissatisfaction felt by Metro Vancouver renters in regard to their dwelling units could be tied to housing precarity due to government policy changes and eviction rates over the years. Homeowners simply have more control over their housing.
“People who buy and own their dwelling have a higher satisfaction rate with their neighbourhood, which I think stems from the fact that their ownership of their housing is not threatened by current housing mandates to demolish existing affordable rental units in the city under current policies, which are advocating for tower replacement.
“What is interesting [in the data] is that the neighbourhood that the renter is in has a higher satisfaction rate than the actual rental unit, suggesting that there is less mobility for the renter in having a better housing unit.
“While they cannot control being a renter, they can control living in a neighbourhood that provides them with amenities they choose.”
Mr. Hein said policy-makers can avoid greater future dissatisfaction by returning to the neighbourhood as the starting point.
“I believe that by recommitting to strong neighbourhoods, we can reveal new market opportunities that will provide both rental and new ownership choices.”