Just 13 per cent of new housing units in Burnaby are rentals

Continued from page 1 in Burnaby and to stay in Burnaby as long as they wish, rather than be at the whims of whether or not the market changes and the rent can be drastically increased,” Gu said

She noted there’s additional population growth on top of what the city’s rental targets planned for, suggesting “the need is even further than what is expected.”

Burnaby, which has the third most expensive rents in the country, aims to build 3,050 purpose-built rentals by 2025, according to its Housing Needs Report.

Instead, hundreds of rental units have been lost since 2020, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. data.

Data crunched byVancouver city staff in April showed Burnaby falling behind regionally, as it lost 690 rental units between 2017 and 2022. (Since 2012’s total of just under 13,000, the city is down almost 1,350 rentals, according to CMHC )

While Burnaby is building almost as much housing asVancouver, 87 per cent of the units under construction in Burnaby are ownership housing and just 13 per cent rental (compared withVancou- ver’s 53 per cent ownership and 47 per cent rental), according to data pulled by the City ofVancouver

But Mayor Mike Hurley defended the city’s work on rental housing

“I don’t want to leave this meeting tonight having the public thinking we’re doing nothing, because we went through a 30-year period where rentals didn’t get built at all.”

Hurley cited the city’s most recent rental housing summary, which indicates 11,721 “total rental units at all stages of the development process,” including 6,997 non-market rentals and 4,724 market rental units

“So we are pushing forward – hard – on rental units within the city It’s just that we have a deficit that we’re trying to catch up to,” the mayor said.

But local housing advocate Joel Gibbs says that defence relies on a generous reading of the data

The city defines “the development process” as including any housing that’s either in the rezoning process, received council approval, under construction or tenanted.

Gibbs noted some of the in-stream units might never be built

“‘All stages of planning’ some of those will never be built, or might not be built for 30 years, because for whatever reasons, ‘Oh, market conditions changed, so we’re not doing this ’”

He estimated 10 to 30 per cent of the 11,700 purpose-built rentals in “all stages of planning” are simply replacing the rental buildings demolished due to redevelopment for towers under the city’s rental use zoning policy.

“It’s just been tearing down walk-ups for condos That’s what was happening (when) Derek Corrigan got kicked out for demovictions. And that’s still happening ”

“While that 11,000 number can seem great, when you actually think about what that means on a yearly basis, it’s tiny It’s a nice big number to say, but it doesn’t mean anything.”

Gibbs said the solution is to allow and require rental housing on more land throughout the city

When it comes to the Burnaby LakeVillage master plan, he says, “You can just require (rentals), saying, ‘We’re creating this massive, essentially, profit for developers with this increase in land lift – we’re going to create rental because that’s what our community needs ’”