Incoming Vancouver City Council expected to put renter concerns in focus
Kerry Gold, Vancouver, Special to The Globe and Mail, Updated October 31, 2026
The day after turning 21, Solomon Yi-Kieran became Vancouver’s youngest city councillor-elect.
The Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) member, who uses they and them pronouns, believes they are well positioned to represent residents who are struggling to find secure, affordable housing on a low-to-middle income.
They join a council comprising four COPE members, five Green Party members – including mayor-elect Pete Fry – one OneCity councillor and an incumbent ABC councillor. The council is now overwhelmingly left of centre, and renter protections and publicly developed housing are key goals for both COPE and the Greens. The members aim to broadly circumvent speculation and private development that places an emphasis on profits over housing rights. Both parties champion the return of co-ops as a model of affordable housing.
Yi-Kieran, a history major and transit activist, said their mandate is to secure housing “that regular people in Vancouver are able to afford, whether that’s for rental or for home ownership.”
They experienced the shortage of housing options firsthand while living in a newer building. Although its below-market units filled up right away, most of the market-rate rentals sat empty a year later because the $2,500 to $2,800 rents were unaffordable, they said.
To address the vacancies, COPE supports tripling Vancouver’s Empty Homes Tax to 9 per cent and closing loopholes that let new condos and multifamily buildings sit vacant.
“It just doesn’t make sense to me to see homes sit empty while regular people aren’t able to rent them,” Yi-Kieran said, arguing the tax hike will penalize major players who prefer to hold units vacant while waiting for demand to return.
“We want to make sure that we’re incentivizing the people who do own the buildings and the people who manage those properties to meet the public and the consumers in the middle … through something like an empty homes tax.”
Yi-Kieran said a top priority for COPE is establishing a landlord registry and relaunching a fully funded Renters Office with enhanced regulatory teeth, alongside implementing a formal tenant protection bylaw to block displacement.
“We want to be protecting people from eviction and from renoviction,” they said.
The Greens propose raising capital via a Vancouver Public Housing Bond to fund housing development on city-owned land. The members also plan to launch a rapid acquisition fund to purchase vulnerable older rental stock targeted for private redevelopment. Under their platform, major private developments would be required to deliver land or cash for non-profit or co-op housing, to be held by the public.
Newly elected Green Party councillor Stephanie Smith argues that city hall can no longer let the private development market dictate housing security. She said the Broadway Plan “overpromised and under-delivered,” failing to produce affordable housing while creating tenant insecurity and displacement.
“The city has approached development and redevelopment in a way that creates profound housing insecurity for thousands and thousands of Vancouver tenants, and has done so unnecessarily,” Ms. Smith said. “We’re tearing down some of the most affordable, accessible housing stock in the city and replacing it with housing that no one can afford. This is not progressive.”
The Greens will let institutional investors buy into the Vancouver Public Housing Bond and earn a modest return. Ms. Smith said the Renters Office will monitor landlord compliance, implement staff-recommended “pace of change” caps that the previous council rejected, and protect vulnerable communities from displacement.
“Tenants shouldn’t be left to individually compel landlord compliance. That’s not equitable. It’s not successful,” Ms. Smith said. “There are way too many people looking over their shoulder waiting to be evicted. The lack of housing security is destructive to people. People can’t live like that, and they shouldn’t be expected to.”
David Woo is vice-president of development, Western Canada, for Starlight Investments, a global real estate investment and asset management firm based in Toronto. It has a reported $30-billion in assets under management. The company has about 3,500 apartment units in various stages of development in B.C.
In Burnaby, Starlight Investments manages Lougheed Village, which will comprise 1,728 units when built out. In Vancouver, the company secured rezoning approval for a 61-unit infill apartment project at 1755 Haro St., behind the Robson and Denman Safeway. The original 19-storey apartment tower will remain. At 1501 Haro St., it proposes a similar development: a 60-unit infill building behind an original 22-storey apartment tower. The zoning does not require below-market units. Because they add infill, the current tenants are not displaced, said Mr. Woo. The existing units, however, are upgraded to newer safety standards.
He said that because housing is top of mind for the newly formed council, he is hopeful they can work together, but he cautions against additional costs when returns on projects are often “razor thin and barely financeable.”
“If you go to the extreme on one end, then there’s no redevelopment opportunity. I believe there should be tenant protection, absolutely. But it needs to be done in such a way that projects can still be financeable; otherwise, it becomes extremely difficult to create net new housing. But that’s why we’re such big fans of infill because no tenants get displaced … it’s a win-win for everybody.”
The city has so far helped his industry deliver housing by reducing development cost charges and amending design guidelines, he said.
“We continue to feel optimistic about being able to deliver this housing under this new council,” said Mr. Woo. “Everybody recognized that not only is it a supply issue, but it’s a cost of delivery issue. And they started to recognize the pinch points and have granted a number of relaxations to help move projects that are sort of teetering on the verge of being financeable. And I think those efforts are great.
“As I understand it, the new council will try not to disrupt what staff has achieved and keep a lot of the senior staff in place. I think that continuity is important to keep the progress moving forward.”
