Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart is set to propose a last-minute amendment to the Vancouver Plan.
Stewart will look to extend renter protections like those in the Broadway Plan to the entire city.
“We’re a city of renters and they deserve to have more choices in every single neighbourhood,” Kennedy Stewart said.
In what Stewart calls the “strongest protections in Canada,” no renter along the Broadway corridor will see their rent go up if their building is redeveloped, along with a number of other measures.
The Vancouver mayor wants those protections extended to all renters in the city, in what might be another possible plank in his re-election campaign.
“The agreement we make is that when a rental building is replaced or a new rental is built, that developers get extra density as long as they have at least 20 per cent of the units in the building are permanently geared for folks working full-time at minimum wage,” Stewart said.
Jessica Goot of the Vancouver Tenants Union said it sounds good on paper but until its reality renters will still live in fear of being displaced.
“We’re going to see if Kennedy Stewart actually really cares about tenants or what he is saying is just a lot of hot air because we know the election is coming up, so we know that lots of words get tossed around so that people can get votes right,” Goot said.
Stewart’s plan would be an amendment to the Vancouver Plan set to go before council for a vote on Wednesday.
The Vancouver Plan is a “visionary long-range land use plan” that the city says it will use to create a more “livable, affordable and sustainable” city over the next 30 years.
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