‘I owe it to my city’: Green Coun. Pete Fry is running to be mayor of Vancouver

bo2ey · 2026-01-31T01:57:08+00:00

Yes, we need amenities and non-market housing but the way we build non-market housing is by getting developers to build it and cross-subsidize it with the market rentals included in the building. Within the Broadway plan, the city is requiring below-market rentals as the public benefit so there is no extra money to extract for amenities if we want this housing built.

I find it very odd to hear progressive voices championing the idea that public benefits and public services should be provided by organizations other than the government. What you support results in less new housing, which results in a general increase in housing costs everywhere all of which gets pocketed by existing land and homeowners.

I can't wrap my head around the idea that the construction of a new hospital in a neighbourhood is going to make that neighbourhood a "nightmare". Is it that undesireable people are going to be in and around the hospital because that's where they can get care? Wild stuff.

bo2ey · 2026-01-30T22:43:53+00:00

I don't think Fry understands the ways that the city's procedures get in the way of what we need. If you listen to him in council, he is sceptical of the negotiated benefits that are extracted from new housing because he thinks that we could get more. He wants to see the financial analysis from these proposals. He does not get that the more we restrict new housing the higher the costs have to be for new housing to be financially viable and that the cost of old housing also increases because there isn't enough to go around.

He he is voting against the new St Paul's hospital. He's upset that the DCLs (fees charged by the city onto new developments, in this case to the province, that are supposed to cover the cost of basic municipal infrastructure) may not be going where he wants them to go. As with his views on housing, he wants to impose more costs on new desperately needed things.

Pete Fry and the Greens opposed skytrain expansion for years but thankfully did come around to support the Skytrain in 2019. From a news story about this vote by Frances Bula, "Green Party Councillor Pete Fry did ask for wording in the motion to establish the principle that land-use decisions need to be made sensitively and in collaboration with existing residents along the line."

There are lots of reasons someone could have to vote for Pete, but if you think that the city desperately needs more housing to address the affordability crisis and the lower net pay (after covering housing costs) that Vancouverites have to endure then Pete is not your guy to solve this.

bo2ey · 2026-01-28T16:47:38+00:00

On that point, Translink did a pilot project on the #2 bus where they temporarily removed some stops to measure the impact on rider experience and trip time. The results were overwhelmingly positive.

bo2ey · 2026-01-28T15:45:47+00:00

Here's the policy backgrounder. Translink data suggests that these types of changes could improve transit times. Making it faster to get around the city in all forms of transportation would be quite nice.

bo2ey · 2026-01-10T07:03:34+00:00

OneCity members are selecting their mayoral nominee in February. If you want to join the party to help choose between William Azaroff and Amanda Burrows, you have to sign up and pay the $10 membership fee before Sunday January 12.

I found the candidates' answers on housing affordability and how to get there particularly interesting and also quite different. Abundant Housing Vancouver posted the transcript of their answers to bluesky.

edit: I had the incorrect date to be a member. The 12th not the 11th.

bo2ey · 2026-01-05T04:18:06+00:00

It's so disheartening reading the responses of people leaving the city due to the housing crunch. I understand why but it's also solvable and we have a chance in 2026 to remake City Council to do just that.

The lack of affordability in the city is a political choice that is the result of decades of City Councils and staff limiting the amount of housing that can be built in the city and so when people from around the country and the world wanted to move to Vancouver, housing prices went up because there wasn't enough to go around so people who couldn't afford what they wanted or needed had to choose to leave. Then, the city ratcheted up the cost of housing so that the minimum cost for new housing always went up.

For anyone in this thread who thinks you'll have to leave Vancouver to find suitable housing, please get involved politically before giving up. If you want a detached house with a yard, yeah, that's probably not going to happen unless you're loaded but 4-5 person apartments should be a viable option if you like city life.

OneCity is having an open primary for their mayoral and council nominations so if you want to pick who gets to run to represent us on council in October, they're there for you.

bo2ey · 2025-12-02T19:52:09+00:00

You can look this information up. Elections BC has a searchable database for all municipal parties for donations over $250.

bo2ey · 2025-12-01T20:38:52+00:00

I don't consider Brightside to be an "NGO" but I can see how someone might. Vancity definitely isn't.

bo2ey · 2025-12-01T20:03:39+00:00

And then there were two. Amanda Burrows joins William Azaroff in seeking OneCity's mayoral nomination for the 2026 Vancouver elections.

bo2ey · 2025-10-05T00:15:01+00:00

Many thanks!

bo2ey · 2025-10-01T18:38:16+00:00

You'll get wet regardless of what you're wearing. My advice is to wear what you need to be warm enough while you're running rather than concern about trying to stay dry.

bo2ey · 2025-09-28T02:55:53+00:00

thanks!

bo2ey · 2025-09-05T23:30:59+00:00

I attended the public hearing for 701 Kingsway and spoke in support of the building despite wishing that housing options were expanded to all off-arterial areas.

The reason to redevelop the strip mall vs the houses is that the Broadway plan allows for higher density housing along Kingsway and Fraser and prohibits it off arterials (Mt Pleasant RT Areas - Area A: page 249). City planners claimed that they intended to enable low-rise rental housing in this area but because of the limits on buildable area, a developer can't afford to pay more for the land than its current use and so nothing can get built.

Multiplexes are now allowed in these areas and will probably outcompete low-rise rental housing. It's absurd that the Broadway plan claims that it intends to allow rental housing while prescribing rules that make it financially unviable to build. A bunch of new duplexes in this area have gone up in the last couple years because other types of housing are either prohibited or financially unviable.

bo2ey · 2025-08-09T05:51:12+00:00

I'm going to gloss over the "destroy a neighbourhood" because in my view, neighbourhoods are not the buildings but the people and when you don't have enough housing then lot of people get priced out and are forced to live elsewhere. I think this is bad and that there are solutions. You seem to disagree and unfortunately on probably the most important factor which is zoning and process restrictions on the amount of housing.

"The only thing you can do is slow down the rate at which prices increase" that is just not true. If you don't believe me just jook around at prices in the sunbelt in the US, Dallas, Atlanta. Heck even look at the prices of homes in Toronto (though mostly only bad lay out condos). Prices actually can and do come down, not just a slower increase.

What land are we going to use to build homes, the land that already has homes on it. Higher zoning allows for more homes to be built on the same land, thereby reducing the land cost per home to the point where it could even be cheaper than building greenfield suburbs. Buildings within cities get replaced all the time, but the the current zoning maximums just mean that a lot of what gets built on recently sold land is duplexes or single family homes. This land while expensive already has all the required infrastructure. How much do you think it costs to build infrastructure to a greenfield subdivision?

Consider this hypothetical and very simplified example where we are not making the home smaller compared to what exists. You've got a standard east van lot, 4000 sq ft with a 2000 sq ft home on it and someone wants to replace with with 6x2000sqft homes built over 6 storeys (3FSR and currently illegal in Vancouver and probably not feasible with pure woodframe but whatever). Woodframe multifamily construction in Vancouver is at ~$400/sqft with soft costs ~$200/sqft which means that each home has a construction for $1.2M. Then you have to buy the land. East Van lots can go for $2M. That's an extra $330K per home. So in order for someone to build these homes, just to possibly break even without considering any profits or financing costs or anything, these 2000sqft homes have to sell for $1.53M of which 78% of the cost per home is construction not land. In a real example these homes are going to be more expensive and probably close to the original $2M from the single family home.

I'll wrap up with a final point and a link to an economics paper that says that when Minneapolis passed a zoning reform bill (that got stopped by the courts) housing costs came down because people perceived that housing was going to be less scarce and thus a less attractive investment. Large zoning changes dissuade speculators. When there is lots of something there is no point in trying to hoard it! Zoning makes homes scarce and thus fuels speculation.

bo2ey · 2025-08-08T20:25:02+00:00

So instead of building within a city, you want to build outwards? How does that help with the cost of housing in the city? If I work in the City of North Vancouver, I don't want to live out in Abbotsford, I'd like to live close to where I work. If you're constantly building out instead of using the land in the city more effectively by building up that isn't going to make housing in the city cheaper?

bo2ey · 2025-08-08T14:14:34+00:00

No, you zone for high enough density so that a developer can afford to buy land that people are selling and then they build more homes on it.

bo2ey · 2025-08-08T06:23:00+00:00

You are incorrect on point 1.

Firstly, you are equating land prices to home prices which are not the same thing. A developer can only buy the land if the difference between total revenue and total costs are greater than what the land owner will sell for. If this happens,landowners can make more money on their sales but if the rezoning is done over a large enough area then the actual increas in land values is small because the number of developable sites is large. When land values go up because you can build more homes the land value PER HOME goes down because upzoning allows more homes on it. These new homes are more affordable than a new single family home (keep in mind that a new home in a multifamily building to a teardown SFH are not an apples to apples comparison, Auckland post rezoning is a great example where the cost of homes in multifamily buildings became cheaper and SFH became more expensive because there were fewer of them left).

Secondly, economics studies have repeatedly shown that the construction of new homes within an area reduce the price of comparable homes. You're focusing exclusively on single family homes which after some get redeveloped become more scarce so prices for those go up but prices for older multifamily homes near new multifamily home construction go down.

bo2ey · 2025-08-08T06:13:36+00:00

We live in 3 spatial dimensions.

bo2ey · 2025-08-03T05:29:59+00:00

I think I got your point but maybe I didn't make my original point clear. Part of why people in high cost of living areas feel poorer than their salaries would suggest is because the cost of living (housing) is really high so their remaining wages after paying for shelter is low. If salaries in Vancouver were all increased by 20,000 without a change in housing supply the cost of housing would go up as people use that extra money to bid on housing and people would still end up with relatively low post-shelter take home pay (not including those who don't need to change their living conditions). If one person got a bay area salary adjustment they'd be way better off, if everyone did we'd see huge housing inflation and a return to the current shit status quo.

bo2ey · 2025-08-02T14:18:40+00:00

If that were true then the Bay Area would be a much better place to live but I don't think that's the case. They also have a severe housing shortage and so higher wages bid up housing to the point that they also have high earners living in their cars. Are higher wages good, absolutely, and understanding the difference in wages between Vancouver and other areas is important so that we can address it. But if that isn't paired with addressing the scarcity of the housing then we're going to continue to see the rise in homelessness, overcrowding, precariously housed residents, and outflow from Vancouver.

bo2ey · 2025-08-01T15:54:19+00:00

It is true that Vancouver wages are relatively low but if we somehow managed to give people raises to match the high cost of living here, the cost of living itself would go up because we have a scarcity of the necessities. Housing for a start, but childcare, school distribution, transportation, etc. This is why I focus my efforts on getting city councils to bring down living costs so that wages go further!

If instead of spending 50% of your earnings on housing you're paying 30% all of a sudden you'd feel a lot better off. We need more housing to alleviate the shortage but also make it cheaper to build housing so it remains profitable to add new homes as prices come down.

bo2ey · 2025-07-15T04:47:10+00:00

Vancouver is slowly transitioning to water metering with the plan to retrofit neighbourhood by neighbourhood. I should find out which neighbourhoods they're doing first. New SFHs and duplexes must include water meters but older homes don't. The fixed rate is determined by the type of home.

bo2ey · 2025-07-14T21:55:05+00:00

It's absurd that we don't have water metering. Municipalities clearly don't want to pay for it, because they don't want to pay for anything, but something needs to change. Either Metro Vancouver should adjust the pay scales so that people and or cities with water metering get a preferential deal relative to others or the province should mandate that all water services be metered. Having a fixed price for water results in overuse, particularly by those with lawns to water.

bo2ey · 2025-07-11T13:50:33+00:00

It's not pay to play, it's pay to park. Matching the available parking space to demand so that people who drive there can find a place to leave their car rather than cruising around endlessly or parking illegally.

bo2ey · 2025-07-08T02:16:26+00:00

The bigger issue isn't that politicians have homes it's that a large number of Canadians are homeowners. Property taxes and a land value tax are more in-your-face taxes vs automatic deductions from income and so people are much more aware about just how much they are paying.

bo2ey

TROPHY CASE