TEAM WELCOMES END OF UNDEMOCRATIC “SOCIAL HOUSING” PLAN

But none of the civic parties came up smelling like roses for their roles in its demise

VANCOUVER (Dec. 10, 2025) – TEAM for a Livable Vancouver says OneCity, COPE and the Greens thumbed their noses at residents’ concerns about 20-storey “social housing” towers when they rejected amendments to the Social Housing Initiative on Tuesday.

TEAM supports social housing. But it believes the City should work with residents to ensure the form and scale of new social housing fits into neighbourhoods. TEAM’s platform makes this clear: the party will restore trust in City policy development by ensuring that it is focused on the residents and businesses directly affected by the outcomes.

Instead, the Social Housing Initiative would have allowed 20-storey towers on 32% of Vancouver’s residential land area and six-storey buildings on 17% of the land area. That means half of Vancouver’s residential land  would have been directly impacted – without a single public hearing.

The takeaway from Tuesday’s vote is clear: OneCity, COPE and the Greens are all missing in action when it comes to listening to residents and protecting a livable city. These so-called progressive parties continued to support this undemocratic measure even after the ABC-majority Council suddenly changed course at the last minute.

“It is a relief that this inappropriate initiative was not approved,” says former TEAM Councillor Colleen Hardwick. “While I think we all agree that distributed social housing is a good thing, allowing 20-storey towers to be randomly jackhammered into neighbourhoods at 10 times the height and density with no public process was ill-advised – not to mention undemocratic.”

TEAM wonders why it took ABC three years to realize that the massive plan was a death sentence for livability and far too broad, given that only 10 social housing projects are built a year. 

The threat of being turfed out in next year’s election appears to have put ABC in such a panic that they were willing to gut a plan that took three years of staff time and effort to create.

For Vancouverites who reject ABC’s record of public disregard and mismanagement, TEAM for a Livable Vancouver is the only genuine alternative.