Vancouver City Council’s recent decisions on housing policy reveal a troubling disconnect. While dramatically upzoning the Downtown Eastside to allow more market-rate development, Council simultaneously voted down measures that would have enabled social housing throughout the rest of the city.
This imbalance threatens to accelerate displacement in one of Canada’s most vulnerable communities in the name of “expanding housing options” in the Downtown Eastside while continuing to limit social housing outside of the area.
What Changed in the Downtown Eastside
In December 2025, Vancouver City Council passed sweeping zoning changes to the Downtown Eastside after a lengthy and contentious public hearing process that spanned multiple days. Speakers and councilors alike expressed concerns about the impacts new development may have on the neighbourhood.
The policy change will shift the supply of new housing in both the Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer District (DEOD) and Thorton Park (FC-1) zones. The key changes of the proposed amendments include:
- Dramatically increase density with reduced affordability requirements. Previously, developers could build up to 5.0-7.0 floor space ratio (FSR)—a measure of building size relative to lot size—on sub-area 1 sites only if they included 60% social housing. Now, sites can reach 11.0 FSR (or approximately 32 storeys) with only 20% social housing. This represents a threefold reduction in the affordability requirements.
- Weakened social housing standards. The definition of social housing has been diluted. Now only 20% of designated social housing units must be rented at the shelter rate (the income assistance amount allocated for housing), down from 33%. An additional 10% must be rented out below Housing Income Limits (HILs), the income thresholds used to determine eligibility for various housing programs.
- Easier demolition of single room occupancy hotels (SROs). The policy makes it simpler to demolish and replace SROs, which are one of the only forms of affordable housing left in the City to low-income tenants.
What Didn’t Happen: Social Housing elsewhere in Vancouver
The city is currently creating its first Official Development Plan (ODP), required by recent provincial legislation and built from the Vancouver Plan that passed in 2022. This plan will help guide development decisions for the next three decades.
One of the Vancouver Plan’s most promising components was the Social Housing Initiative, which would have allowed social housing by right throughout all residential zones, with varying densities based on area characteristics. This would have created opportunities for affordable housing across the city, reducing pressure on neighbourhoods like the DTES to absorb all of Vancouver’s most vulnerable residents. Unfortunately, the same day Council began debating the changes to the Downtown Eastside, Council voted down the Social Housing Initiative. The rationale from ABC councilor Lenny Zhou on why the vote failed was that the Social Housing Initiative went “too far” and would “fundamentally reshape our city” given some areas would see much higher densities allowed for social housing projects.
Why This Matters: The Displacement Risk
These contradictory policies create conditions for significant harm. Upzoning the Downtown Eastside and Thorton Park without enabling strong social supports and flexible social housing solutions in the rest of Vancouver will concentrate both development pressure and vulnerable populations into a single neighbourhood already struggling with inadequate and increasingly unaffordable housing stock.
The mechanics of displacement are well-documented. Upzoning a neighbourhood typically increases land values by expanding development potential. When affordability requirements are weak, as the shift from 60% to 20% social housing clearly shows, these gains flow primarily to landowners and investors rather than benefiting existing residents. In the absence of secured tenure or strong affordability requirements, residents face rising rents, building sales, renovictions, and ultimately displacement.
Hundreds of academics, including several BSH staff and collaborators, have come out to share their concerns during the public hearing process, noting that “more affordable social, nonmarket, and supportive housing is needed to address the housing crisis, alongside plans to increase the habitability of existing buildings.” The evidence is clear: market-rate housing development is not sufficient on its own to address displacement at a neighbourhood level. Instead, the proposal continues historical cycles of disinvestment and reinvestment that have repeatedly destabilized the DTES.
How the Plan can be Improved
Several evidence-based strategies could protect vulnerable residents while allowing necessary improvements:
- Strengthen social housing definitions. The 2014 definition for social housing from the DTES Local Area Plan, was developed with considerable community input and should be reinstated. This definition required that a third of social housing units be rented at income assistance rates (shelter rates), which ensures that units are rented at rates residents can actually afford and helps ensure that more people stay housed. The weakened definition of social housing adopted by the City of Vancouver will mean that fewer units are actually affordable to low-income residents, placing further pressures on shelters and temporary housing.
- Implement safeguards to protect the most vulnerable. Without increasing the supply of affordable housing and protecting affordable rental units, people will be evicted into homelessness. One of the best ways to address homelessness is to ensure that people don’t lose their housing in the first place. Legislation can be strengthened to protect tenants from unfair rent increases and bad-faith evictions. The City can also enhance its Tenant Relocation and Protection Policy to meet the specific needs of DTES tenants, as it did in Vancouver’s Broadway corridor, to help ensure that tenants are treated fairly.
- Increase direct government investment. Fundamentally, higher levels of public investment in social housing remain the strongest safeguard against displacement. Market mechanisms alone cannot produce housing affordable to those on income assistance or minimum wage. Coordinated funding programs are needed to bring all levels of government to the table.
What’s Next?
Vancouver City Council is expected to vote on the Official Development Plan in the coming months. This represents a critical opportunity to revisit the Social Housing Initiative and establish stronger affordability standards citywide. The decision now will shape Vancouver for decades to come.
In the absence of adequate policy protections, community organizations like First United, Hogan’s Alley Society and the Downtown Eastside Community Land Trust will continue to advocate for and support residents they have done for decades. But a lack of supportive policies should not force already vulnerable communities to bear this burden alone. We echo the open letter to Vancouver Mayor and Council: “We oppose this harmful development plan and call for the City to reconsider its current proposal and work towards the creation of a new plan that truly listens to the needs of the community and prioritizes real, affordable housing without displacement.”
This analysis is connected to our Strengthening Community Land Trust Research project, and Dr. Kuni Kamizaki’s research: “What are the implications of potential policy and zoning changes in Vancouver to CLT efforts to preserve low-income housing?”
For more, visit our research project page.
The Balanced Supply of Housing is a SSHRC-CMHC funded, community-based research project at UBC that focuses on land use and housing financialization across Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal.
