Kennedy Stewart prioritizes plan to make good on Vancouver’s housing promises

Vancouver’s new mayor is laying out a plan to make good on his election promise to build 85,000 new homes over the next decade.

Kennedy Stewart’s first priority is to tee up 25,000 affordable rentals, run by non-profits on city-owned land.

But the rest is up to the private sector, he says, where prices will be market-driven.

“We do need more supply; our population is always growing,” Stewart said. “That’s something we have to account for, and we also accrue benefits from private housing. But what I can tell you is that… I’ll get more backlash if I don’t build housing because then our prices are really going to go high.”

Private builds, he said, don’t address affordability.

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“These are for the higher end tech workers that are coming to the city, professional folks that are earning more money per year, that’s what higher income renters would live in and then there’s the regular housing that people would purchase.”

He adds the city’s jobs is to speed up the permit process to get housing built.

Stewart takes office in two weeks.