“The potential opportunities seem to be outweighed by the challenges,” Vancouver city staff say about idea of bylaw allowing city “first-right-of-refusal” to purchase properties
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Two years ago, Vancouver city council directed staff to explore the idea of a bylaw giving the municipality first dibs at buying properties before they’re sold on the market.
Now, Vancouver staff have reported back that although similar programs in other North American cities have seen some success, such a bylaw isn’t likely to be effective in Vancouver. The main reason: the city doesn’t have enough money.
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Council had directed staff to explore the possible development of what they called a “a pre-emptive-right bylaw (a.k.a. right-of-first-refusal bylaw),” which would enable the city to put a hold on a property so that if it’s put up for sale, the owner must offer it to the city first before accepting an offer from the market.
City staff reviewed the concept and its application in some other jurisdictions, and reported back to council last month with a memo recently released publicly. The report says that while similar pre-emptive bylaws in Montreal and San Francisco have been “effective” in allowing those cities to acquire and preserve affordable housing, in Vancouver “the potential opportunities seem to be outweighed by the challenges.”
Vancouver city staff reported that a pre-emptive right bylaw wouldn’t be likely to increase the quantity of affordable housing, because “the main barrier to achieving this is available funding to purchase properties, not the acquisition process itself.” The staff report also says the creation of such a program “would likely be legally complex and highly staff-intensive.”
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In 2022, Vancouver’s previous council approved ABC Coun. Rebecca Bligh’s amendment directing staff to explore the pre-emptive right bylaw and, in late 2023, the current council approved a motion from Bligh directing staff to accelerate this work.
Reached Monday, Bligh said she wanted staff to explore this concept because she believes it could help the city achieve its objectives, “and I naturally was disappointed by staff’s report back.”
“However, I appreciate the level of analysis that was provided, and while I continue to dig into these details, I remain hopeful that we actually keep the conversation going,” Bligh said.
The staff report says that if more funding were available to purchase properties through a pre-emptive right program, there could be benefits to the city and non-profit housing sector.
The city could, with its existing acquisition process, acquire existing apartment buildings or properties to redevelop into social housing, the report says. But the cost would be high.
“This is similarly true for single-room occupancy (SRO) buildings, which many owners are interested in selling to the province or city, but for which the existing funding is inadequate to do so,” the report says.
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One of those owners is Christopher Wall, who has said for years he believes all privately owned SROs, including his portfolio of seven buildings, should be owned by government.
On Monday, Wall said: “The city has the desire, but they don’t have the money. That’s why it has to be the province funding it, possibly with the help of the federal government.”
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