Driving problems from inequality to sprawl to pollution, restrictions against anything but single-detached houses have to go.

Vancouver is the epicenter of British Columbia's housing crisis and shortage. So why does the city still ban new apartment buildings on most of its residential land, reserving it exclusively for low-density housing? While there have been small steps towards reforming single-detached zoning in Vancouver in recent years, apartments are still not allowed on more than three-quarters of the city's residential land.

Much the same is true in other big, expensive cities in BC and across North America. Under this decades-old zoning regime, sometimes referred to as the "grand bargain," apartments are permitted only in relatively narrow segments of a city. Apartment construction is largely confined to busy roads and areas with older apartments where working-class and poorer folks live, while the wealthiest single-detached housing areas are left largely untouched to avoid provoking NIMBY backlash. The results of this "grand bargain" are perhaps easiest to see from above, as in the image below from the housing advocacy group, Vancouver Area Neighbours Association.

While Vancouver may conjure images of glassy downtown skyscrapers, the reality is that most of the city's land area is taken up by single-detached houses, the most expensive and land-intensive form of housing.

The BC government has recently shown a willingness to incrementally push back on cities applying exclusionary zoning (more on this below), but as yet, it hasn't been prepared to overturn widespread apartment bans. Persistent exclusionary zoning in cities like Vancouver is deepening the housing shortage and inflicting damage on Vancouverites and British Columbians - especially renters - in several ways.

Seven ways the apartment ban hurts renters and perpetuates the housing shortage

1. It blocks new homes on most of cities' land

First, the apartment ban is suppressing the creation of badly needed new housing in huge parts of our cities. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation estimates that British Columbia needs to build 610,000 more homes by 2030 above current trends, consistent with findings of independent analysts. Housing shortages hurt the most vulnerable, while adding new housing helps reduce upward pressure on rents. We can't address those shortages while blocking apartment creation on the vast majority of cities' residential land.

2. It drives renter displacement and the loss of older, more affordable apartments

Second, the apartment ban in single-detached areas is driving displacement of tenants in existing apartment areas. Under the status quo, with apartments blocked in the vast detached-housing zones of our cities, development is steered instead towards places where apartment buildings are already located, leading to the demolition of older, lower-cost apartments. Burnaby notoriously saw widespread displacement of renters in this manner near Metrotown, and other cities have seen similar patterns of development. It doesn't have to be this way: new apartments could be built instead in nearby single-detached areas if cities would allow it.

3. It balloons the costs and risks of building new homes, including for affordable housing developers

Third, exclusionary zoning increases both the costs of new housing and the risk that uncertainty and delay prevent construction altogether. In limited areas where apartment housing is allowed (through an unpredictable discretionary rezoning process), developers of new housing - non-market1 and market alike - have to compete for scarce parcels, driving up land purchase prices. As a result, even well before a rezoning process, exclusionary zoning artificially increases land prices for the sites where apartments are allowed by keeping them scarce. For nonprofits trying to build affordable housing, the cost and risk of the rezoning process itself can jeopardize project viability. Higher costs for non-mar...