Albert Huang - 黃忠堅

Nine people dead after man drives into crowd at Vancouver street festival Vancouver Police have ruled out terrorism and say a 30-year-old suspect has been arrested after the incident at the bustling Filipino festival

At least nine people dead after man drives into crowd at Vancouver street festival Saturday night
www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/briti...

Episode 89: How to Evaluate Zoning Reforms with Aaron Barrall (part 1) Aaron Barrall shares insights from Los Angeles's zoning reform and what they reveal about upzoning’s effectiveness in cities worldwide.

Good episode talking about how to evaluate zoning reforms. This touches on a lot of concepts, zoned capacity, development potential, and how land use interacts with economics.

If you enjoyed this event or my thread here, please make a donation to us here at AHV!

www.abundanthousingvancouver.com/donate1x

….like @movementyvr.bsky.social succeed in other cities. Advocacy works!

Ravi: thanks to @ahvancouver.bsky.social and Movement for their advocacy and awareness raising. These are importance conversations for our future. It’s great to see the work of 9 years ago starting to bear out.

…and vote to keep taxes low? Past governments have used this before.

Now closing thoughts!

Jenn: There’s a byelection coming in Vancouver. Who are the candidates prepared to raise property taxes to incentivize higher density uses? Support them.

Denis: I’ve seen groups….

Jenn asks if the province would consider a change in property tax regime where cities assess a higher rate of taxation just on the land value component of a property.
Could this be another avenue for government to raise needed revenue?

Denis: Do more voting Vancouverites have land assets….

Danny’s next big Q for our panels: what’s it saying when land wealth is increasing faster than labour and other assets?

Jen points out that property taxes aren’t increasing at the same pace as valuation increases. Perversely encouraging private capital to seek out land investment.

“…. I’m encouraging cities to come to the province and the federal government to join me in having a conversation about how to fund infrastructure.” -RK

Jenn: “How about cities that have avoided looking to their own property tax revenue sources?”

Ravi: 🤔🤐

“What about cities that levy higher development fees to get around policies encouraging housing development. Many cities charge higher fees on apartments vs detached homes” - Jenn

“There are communities that use these charges as an obstacle. And are not concerned with actual infrastructure” -Ravi

“How do we are the financial and economic viability of housing development”

Ravi: “we are looking at everything. Interest rates have been high for some years. We’re not afraid of looking at development cost charges, and don’t expect any one thing will be the key. Likely a few things “

She goes on to describe Japanese urban land use not discriminating between forms of housing (apartments and detached homes) being treated as the same. Japanese senior government levels shoulder the political need to encourage housing rather than let it fall victim to local political capture.

“It was probably one of the best years of my life” Jenn describing living in a small Taipei apartment as a student walking distance to her university and local markets

“There are ranges of housing needs, we could use that in our home here”

….with access to more job options.

And Ravi takes transit! Speaks to people being surprised to see him catch the bus to the skytrain to even come here tonight!

Thanks for normalizing and encouraging transit lifestyles @ravikahlon.bsky.social @movementyvr.bsky.social !

Denis “we need to focus on the million people that already take transit at least once a week. If we improve the reliability and the experience, we’ll see more ridership.”

Also cited research that people with shorter commutes are more likely to escape poverty. And it provides people….

….and write to their city and public officials to make sure it’s known how much support good ideas have.

Ravi: “and congratulate and recognize when people are doing good things”

Jenn: “Feel free to be more pushy with cities that are not acting fast enough for the moment!”

Excited to see that even non Vancouver communities are having conversations about alternative transportation - electric bikes, mobility scooters, etc.

Denis shares his own experience with seeing the public email agencies and elected officials. Transit riders and housing advocates need to call…

Ravi highlighting that we need to be more worried about housing for people, and less of a focus on housing for cars. May be importance to suburban communities where transit is less available.

…..stores, businesses, schools, and services without efforts to seriously make these neighborhoods more accessible with more housing.

Danny shifting to the overbearing dominance of parking minimums in Vancouver. Did not expect cities to be so prepared to do away with parking minimums in new housing

Jenn describes getting up in North Vancouver in a detached house supported by a single working income, but gentrification has taken hold even without physical change. The District of North Vancouver has gentrified to become the place of $3M homes with low populations that can’t support….

Danny: “What transit route needs improvement”

Denis: “the 49! People reporting being passed up by 3-4 buses in a row during rush hour. And many routes are in a similar situation “

“…but they HAVE already been changing without the housing form to accommodate” - Rvizzy Kay-lizzy

“It’s an idea whose time has come. We hear about Vancouver schools with low capacity issues and we need to see our cities plan for this now. I hear from some of my constituents about fearing physical changes of our cities…”

“Why aren’t we putting 6, 8, 10 storey apartment buildings on quiet streets around our beloved parks and schools. We love them in the West End and by Stanley Park” - DO

Jenn noting the long issue of new housing only being built on our arterials, but what does it say about our planners and city councils that they are putting new residents on noisy polluted truck routes. 😩💨🚛

Ravi identifying Metro Van regional opportunities around existing transit, even 1km around them, where cities are not taking advantage of the infrastructure investments from s senior governments.

Jenn highlights that it’s fantastic that we’re bringing forward important transit infrastructure to improve people being around Vancouver, but why does it take so long to put up a variety of housing and commercial forms around these stations???

Danny references the Grand Bargain and Denis’ experience with tall housing development around rapid transit. We’re talking about this Gordon Price perspective viewpointvancouver.ca/2019/10/17/t...

Are we thinking of 40 year old skytrain stations like Nanaimo and 29th that look like this today?

“We need more housing champions in local city governments. I recommend to everyone to get active in the coming year in advance of those city elections” - RK

“People should have the ability to live in any community they’d like to live in without long, long commutes. Abundant Housing has been leading communities in driving these conversations and getting cities to shift on this” - Ravi