{"id":37403,"date":"2024-10-07T10:00:11","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T17:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/vancouver\/?p=37403"},"modified":"2025-08-14T10:40:59","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T17:40:59","slug":"the-barcelona-chronicles-vancouver-v-barcelona-foundations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/vancouver\/2024\/10\/07\/the-barcelona-chronicles-vancouver-v-barcelona-foundations\/","title":{"rendered":"The Barcelona Chronicles: Vancouver v. Barcelona – Foundations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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With a good understanding of the main aspects of Barcelona\u2019s policies and approach to affordable housing, it is now possible to compare this to our local context. Vancouver and Barcelona have attempted to tackle the issue, but their strategies and results have been quite different: Barcelona has had much more success in virtually all categories. <\/span><\/p>\n

While we’ll break down specific strategies in the next piece, it’s important to note that despite some similar names\u2014like “Inclusionary Zoning”\u2014these strategies differ due to their unique foundational drivers. Since Vancouver’s approach shares many core elements with other North American cities, a comparison can also provide valuable insights beyond the Lower Mainland.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s dive into what each city is doing and see what Vancouver can learn from Barcelona\u2019s playbook.<\/span><\/p>\n

We started the journey into Barcelona\u2019s policies highlighting two quotes taken directly from the Barcelona Housing Policy 2015-2023. <\/i>We should now have a better understanding of how they inform all levels of their approach. They also offer our first point of comparison, standing in stark contrast to local narratives of how to achieve affordable housing goals:     <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOn its own increasing the quantity of housing is not sufficient to reverse the trend of rising costs of homes\u2026increasing supply does not reduce prices in the free market. To achieve that, more diversity is needed with respect to the income levels targeted by the rental market and the types of tenancy regimes available.<\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIncreasing stock of permanently affordable housing required providing provisions by the public sector, both directly and in partnership with other actors. It also involves making the private sector responsible for providing affordable housing<\/i>.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

These quotes reveal the fundamental distinctions between the two systems, which become clear at the policy level.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vancouver\u2019s approach\u2014affectionately known as Vancouverism<\/a>\u2014relies<\/em> on the market, with “supply” often presented as the solution to affordability issues. It’s been labeled \u201chyper-capitalist\u201d for attempting to engage the market proactively and incentivize better city-building practices through regulations and discretionary controls. such as <\/span>offering more density in exchange for community amenities.<\/p>\n

Initially, this strategy seemed effective, creating a high-quality urban environment that benefited both developers and the public. <\/span>However, its contradictions have since become apparent. In fact, it was an illusion from the start,  as seen in the chart below which shows Vancouver’s rising housing costs (red line) since Expo 86\u2014the first significant deployment of the Vancouverism<\/a> method.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This graph shows housing prices between 1980 and 2008, including compound annual growth and interest rates by decade. Courtesy of the Erick Villagomez.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The perceived early successes of Vancouver\u2019s strategy required a rare combination of expertise: people who could balance development interests with community needs. While Vancouver had such personnel early on, it was naive to think these conditions would remain stable indefinitely. Political turnover and shifting priorities have eroded the foundation on which this strategy was built.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a result, Vancouver\u2019s civic and regulatory culture evolved to focus on “selling zoning” to fund capital projects. Like other cash-strapped municipalities, Vancouver\u2019s officials now prefer to raise revenue through rezoning-related fees and community amenity contributions (CAC)<\/a> rather than increasing property taxes. This puts the mayor and city council in a conflict of interest when considering rezoning applications.<\/span><\/p>\n

The current market-based approach oversimplifies the issue by focusing on supply alone. Pro-development narratives emphasize \u201cunit counts\u201d while ignoring deeper questions about housing types, targeted demographics, infrastructure impacts, and urban quality. This approach also fails to consider the real consequences of demolition and replacement policies, like those of the Provincial-mandated Transit-Oriented Area and Broadway Plan, which have are directly responsible for putting existing affordable rental units at risk. <\/span><\/p>\n

Large assumptions about \u2018vacancy chains\u2019 and \u2018trickle-down\u2019 are at best incomplete, but are stated at all levels without question\u2014from every government party<\/a> to Uytae Lee<\/a>. This is done with no recognition that <\/span>all rents rise relative to the market, with some owners choosing to no longer make historically affordable rental units available once mortgages have been paid off.  <\/span>The chain continues to be weakened at the low end with older buildings being demolished. This normalizes extraordinarily high rents.<\/span><\/p>\n

The failure of market-based thinking is summarized by a recent piece in the Harvard Business Review<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that simply increasing supply, while necessary, is not enough. It is one part of a larger whole. Focus should be on what kind of housing exists, should types of housing are missing, for whom, and how it fits into the broader urban fabric that seeks to improve the quality of life for all citizens. Questions like \u201cWhat public space amenities should be included?\u201d and \u201cHow will it be funded?\u201d are often overlooked in local discussions, along with those looking at the impacts on existing communities, new systems that need to be created to ensure long-term maintenance, partnerships that need to be made to fund across disciplines, and countless others.<\/span><\/p>\n

Affordability is a complex issue, and pretending otherwise is irresponsible. <\/span><\/p>\n

The success of Barcelona\u2019s model\u2014founded on its people-first approach\u2014is based on recognizing and engaging the full affordability system.<\/em> There is no silver bullet. It targets specific income levels and housing tenures, partnership and information systems, funding, and specific measures, ensuring affordable housing is part of a larger strategy that includes open spaces, infrastructure, and urban quality for all<\/em> citizens.<\/span><\/p>\n

Barcelona\u2019s approach aligns with the insights of urban planner Alain Bertaud<\/a>, who argued that affordability requires targeted<\/em> supply based on household income, spatial needs and other metrics under the “housing consumption” umbrella. <\/span>He demonstrates that supply does not guarantee a \u2018trickle-down\u2019 to populations in need, as seen when wealthy individuals buy up luxury units while holding onto existing properties, charging market rates, or leaving them vacant.<\/span><\/p>\n

From my personal experience as Chair of the Academic Working Group<\/em> for Vancouver\u2019s Mayor\u2019s Affordability Task Force years ago, I\u2019ve witnessed firsthand how the City lacks meaningful targets for households in need. I also saw how critical data on spatial attributes, necessary for informed decisions, was not collected, blindly leaving the market to “work out the details”.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vancouver\u2019s \u201chyper-capitalist\u201dpro-market, high-profit system biases limited building types\u2014highrises, for example\u2014even though they come with the highest construction costs. Barcelona, with three times Vancouver\u2019s population density, houses most of its residents in 5-8 storey buildings while maintaining a strong urban environment. This balances the quality of life for all inhabitants with the development industry’s needs, showing that density and affordability are not dependent on highrises or “selling zoning”.<\/span><\/p>\n

Markets tend to produce homogenous products that maximize profits for the few at the expense of the public good. This hinders its ability to address diverse housing needs. <\/span>In contrast, Barcelona\u2019s approach, focuses on diversity…<\/i>of<\/span> tenancy types, building types, and funding models, to name a few, while leveraging both new and existing buildings. <\/span><\/p>\n

While Barcelona still faces challenges, as Eduard Cabr\u00e9 Romans<\/a> points out, it has made more meaningful progress than Vancouver, largely due to its foundational values and commitment to taking responsibility for housing\u2014<\/span>in the service of all its citizenry\u2014instead of irresponsibly leaving it to \u201chidden hands.\u201dA sentiment captured by<\/span> Javier Buron: “Housing is too important to be left exclusively in the hands of the market.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Words to live by.<\/p>\n

With this context in mind, we can now compare the key strategies of each city. As mentioned earlier, do not be fooled by their similar names. They operate in fundamentally different ways. Let’s see how…<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Other pieces in the Barcelona Chronicles<\/strong>:<\/em><\/p>\n