With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/526329
Why has it taken us so long to start talking about this? It's hard to talk about money flow because there's so little hard data. A war on data seems to be emerging. Eliminating the long- form census is a good example. Is there a worry of being labelled "racist" for pinpoint- ing the role of offshore money from China? Is it racist to do so? It's a statement of where a lot of money is from—and that's China. Have you been attacked for saying that? It's harder to attack me because of my name, but some have been, and some are racist. There's also a darker side to Vancouver history we need to acknowledge. That being said, raising concern about how the city is developing is not racist. These are engaged citizens who really care about their city and their neighbourhoods. Cries of "racism" shouldn't silence dis- cussions about city building. How much of a blight is the extent of empty condos in some downtown areas? There's an obsession with empty condos, but what about the fact that 50 to 60 per cent of down- town condo units are not owner- occupied? They're part of our market rental housing stock—a big subsidy to the city. But can somebody actually reliably rent these units for five to 10 years? You see the complexity. You've said Vancouver is turning into a "zombie city." It's a great phrase, but what do you mean by that? A zombie city is a city pre- occupied with consuming as opposed to producing. It's reflective of zombies who mind- lessly wander the earth to con- sume. In the past, Vancouver's economy was about logging, vANCoUvER: Two-SToREY hoUSES: $1.268 million BUNgAlowS $1.175 million CoNDomINIUmS: $506,625 CANADA: Two-SToREY hoUSES: $451,500 BUNgAlowS $405,900 CoNDomINIUmS: $261,782 fishing, mining. It brought in jobs that allowed people to build their lives, raise their families. What happens when those resource industries change and evolve? The old relationship of real estate to local wages is pretty well bro- ken. While wages have remained stable, even stagnated, you still see the type of price escalations we have in Vancouver. Should governments intervene to curb real estate speculation? What about property rights? We're talking about homes. That's a fundamental human need that justifies state intervention. We do it all the time when it's in the pub- lic interest—whether social hous- ing or zoning or public schools... A reformed property transfer tax is one thing they could do. But can you really stem the flood of offshore money? Not without some severely draco- nian measures. Or jiu-jitsu. • average priCe for a home (spring 2015)