16 BCBusiness OCTOber 2016 POrTraiT: ClinTOn Hussey; ClOTHes COurTesy OF nOrDsTrOM
Somewhere along the road to aordability,
Vancouver's never-ending housing debate got
lost in discussions of $4-million teardowns,
ckle foreign owners and poor millennials who
would never have a place to call their own. But
this singular obsession with the market's top
end misses a critical point.
Through a conf luence of factors that
includes government abandoning the housing
business and anemic local incomes, the cost
of living in Vancouver—owning, yes, but also
renting—is now prohibitive for the average citi-
zen. Barring a market collapse, any aordabil-
ity solution now comes down to a combination
of two factors: more government intervention
in the market, and more wealth creation so
local incomes can match local prices.
In Kerry Gold's feature "The Great Canadian
Fire Sale" (p. 72), she makes the case that the
time for the province and feds to act is now,
and that o‹oading responsibility to the pri-
vate sector—in exchange for density, say, as the
City of Vancouver does—no longer cuts
it. Central to a new housing strateŽy,
she argues, is keeping publicly owned
land public—and not selling o what
is arguably our most valuable, lever-
ageable asset. One of the options Gold
examines is the leasehold model—
adopted by, among others,
SFU, whose
UniverCity development contains a
mixture of market and non-market
housing on leasehold land. "Let's ask
what will we have left that is strategically
located—publicly held lands that could
be used to the greater good," Gordon
Harris,
CEO of UniverCity, tells Gold. "If
we squander that now, it's gone."
On the question of boosting incomes
so that we can aord our ticky-tacky
little boxes—well, the record of govern-
ment in creating wealth is spotty at best.
Luckily, B.C. entrepreneurs are work-
ing hard to boost provincial fortunes, which is
abundantly clear in this year's Entrepreneur of
the Year proles (p. 35). Now in its 23rd year,
the
EOY program highlights the success of B.C.
entrepreneurs in creating wealth and high-
paying jobs—thousands of jobs among the 30
nalists alone. If ever the day comes that local
incomes can aord local real estate, thank B.C.'s
entrepreneurs for making it happen.
And it's not just the established, well-oiled
business machines driving our economy.
It's also young entrepreneurs such as Matias
Marques of Buyatab and David Gens of
Merchant Advance Capital—previous recipi-
ents of a BCBusiness 30 Under 30 award. Both
men are showing that millennials, rather than
just griping about their lousy inheritance, can
actually do something to change the prov-
ince. If you know somebody who ts the bill,
nominate them for this year's 30 Under 30 at
BCBusiness.ca/30Under30.
C O N T R I B U T O R S
Matt O'Grady, Editor-in-Chief
mogrady@canadawide.com / @bCbusiness
Kerry Gold ("The Great Canadian
Fire Sale, " p.72) has written
a Globe and Mail column on
Vancouver real estate for almost
10 years. Gold thinks we shouldn't
shy away from discussing the
real reasons for our affordability
problem, arguing that "vast
amounts of foreign money"
are largely to blame. In her
BCBusiness feature, she explores
the role government plays—or
should play—in protecting
affordable housing.
Primarily a portrait photographer
for advertising, movies and TV
shows, Adam blasberg says
shooting the winners of the
2016 EY Entrepreneur of the Year
program (p.35) was great.
"It was hard to shoot a bad
portrait in the Prohibition Bar.
It's so full of rich texture and
great colours that it was simply a
matter of showing the architecture
and being true to the era when
glamour was at its peak. "
Building the
Future
editor's desk
In our leadership issue, we look at the succession plans at some of B.C.'s biggest companies
IN NOVEMBER
