In an effort to tackle the housing crisis, the City of Vancouver is proposing a $2-billion housing endowment.
The move is part of the city’s 10-year housing strategy and comes before council at next Tuesday’s meeting.
Assistant Director of Planning Dan Garrison says the proposal is to consolidate city-owned, non-market land and buildings into a single portfolio.
“That portfolio will have a clear mandate to preserve and grow the city’s affordable housing stock, it’s a big move for the city to make,” he said.
“The total assets that we’re proposing to transfer into the fund will be over 200 non-market housing assets with an assessed value of over $2-billion.”
He says the goal is to create 12,000 social and supportive units over the next 10 years, as well as 20,000 rental units — four to five-thousand of those having secured levels of affordability.
He says this proposal doesn’t entail any new funds because it would consolidate non-market city-owned land and buildings.
“First it would consolidate the existing assets into that fund, and second it would provide a vehicle that we can deliver our new capital funding and our new non-market housing assets that can be generated through things like private development into this fund,” he said.
“Then it can be operated in a way that’s looking at the optimum way to use those assets — to deliver more affordable housing.”