Your City Hall just approved a *lot* of new housing.

It’s been a busy week over at City Hall, with some significant building permits getting the green light. On May 26th, a permit was issued for a substantial 32-storey apartment building at 1088 Burnaby Street. This project alone is slated to bring 300 new dwelling units to the city, with a reported construction value of just over $95 million. That’s a serious injection of housing into the downtown core, right where density makes the most sense.

We also saw several permits issued for new laneway houses across Vancouver. For instance, permits for two-storey laneway homes were issued for 2633 Dundas Street and 1089 E 51st Avenue on the same day. These smaller-scale additions, while not as flashy as a high-rise, contribute to the city’s housing stock in a different way, adding density in established neighbourhoods without completely changing their character. It’s a quiet kind of growth, if you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, a short-term rental business license at 1801-1788 Columbia Street was carried unanimously by the Special Council on April 21st, though Councillor R Bligh was absent for that vote. The consistent approval of these permits, from large apartment towers to laneway homes, suggests a continued push to address the city’s housing challenges. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly these projects move from paper to actual homes.

Beautiful out here. Complicated in here. That's the coast.

Kenji Nakashima, MiTL Vancouver.

The team talks about what this really means for your neighbourhood every morning on mornings.live.