Vancouver set a new record last week (and no, we’re not talking about the heat).
The record is the highest-ever asking price for a bachelor apartment in Canada: a whopping $3,150 a month.
What does that get you? Exclusive rental privileges to a 550-square-foot, zero-bedroom, one-bathroom condo on Richards Street.
For context, using the accepted definition of “affordable” housing—no more than 30 per cent of one’s income—your salary would need to top $125,000 annually for this place to fit the bill.
Vancouver is perhaps not indicative of Whistler, or the rest of Canada, being as it is on the higher end of the affordability scale at the best of times.
But the trend isn’t exclusive to the West Coast.
According to rentals.ca and Urbanation’s newest National Rent Report, average rents in Canada jumped 8.9 per cent this year, to a record high of $2,078.
Vancouver topped the list of 35 cities for average monthly rent, as the price to rent a one-bedroom in the city hit $3,013 in July—a 16.2-per-cent increase over last year.
Whistler isn’t included in the National Rent Report, but the sparse offerings to be found online peg most rentals in that absurd, $3,000-a-month stratosphere.
No parties, no smoking, no pets—and no assurances the postings aren’t just scams.
It hasn’t always been this way. There was a time in Whistler’s not-too-distant past where renters had an abundance of abodes to choose from.
In the immediate aftermath of the Olympics, especially, as new neighbourhoods came online and people transitioned to new housing within the community, there was an embarrassment of rental riches to be had.
The Sept. 16, 2010 issue of Pique contained six full pages of classified ads for housing— yes, pages. Eighty ads per page, and nearly 500 available units.
The going price for a bedroom was about $400; for a one-bedroom suite, it was $1,100; and you could rent an entire five-bedroom house for just $4,000/month.
By Sept. 15, 2011, availability dropped to about 360 units—spread out across 4.5 full pages of classifieds—and by Sept. 13, 2012, it fell to just 200 units.
Prices stayed relatively steady, with one- bedroom suites hovering around the $1,200/ month mark, even as availability continued to plummet in 2013 (about 120 units available in September), 2014 (40 units) and 2015 (just 12 measly units).
By Sept. 15, 2016, Pique’s classifieds section contained just seven offers for housing—none of which were for single bedrooms or one- bedroom suites—and online offerings weren’t much better.
On Craigslist, there were fewer than 20 postings for housing in Whistler in September 2016, with prices for a one-bedroom hovering between $1,300 and $2,200.
Things have only deteriorated further since then, even as more much-needed Whistler Housing Authority inventory was built and occupied in the intervening years.
This year, the Aug. 11 issue of Pique contained no classified ads offering housing, though it did include three ads for businesses looking to rent housing for their workers.
(As an aside, tying accommodation to employment is far from ideal, as it leaves our local workforce prone to coercion and exploitation... but that’s a topic for another column.)
We’ve written before in this space about the concept of Whistler’s “housing continuum,” and how the most important aspect—the entry point—is plugged (see Pique, Jan. 13, 2022: “Whistler’s suite defeat”).
And it’s not as if those in Whistler’s municipal hall don’t understand the problem. “The erosion of market rental housing is distressing. There is no way that we can replace it,” said Councillor Cathy Jewett in a 2021 interview with Pique. “Every time someone buys a place that has a suite in it and renovates it and takes the suite out, it’s basically a $250,000 hole that we can’t fill. We don’t have the capacity to build as fast as the erosion of suites in rental housing.”
It’s not just a Whistler trend.
According to a recent poll by Leger and the Vancouver Sun, 20 per cent of B.C. homeowners have space in their home they aren’t renting out, but could. A further 15 per cent said they could make rentable space in their home.
So more than a third of B.C. homeowners are simply choosing not to rent, and while the poll didn’t ask why, a representative for Leger told the Sun that, in previous polls, the No. 1 reason homeowners don’t rent is due to a fear of “problem tenants.”
And yes, problem tenants exist in Whistler, as they do everywhere. But so do good, honest, hardworking people who just need a place to call home—many of whom have been forced out of Whistler in recent years due to a severe lack of available (and affordable) options.
In Whistler’s new Housing Action Plan, unveiled in May, one of the categories of focus is to “protect and optimize employee housing.”
Under that category, the municipality lists a relevant policy contained in the Official Community Plan: “consider creative approaches to encourage homeowners to make their under-utilized dwellings and auxiliary residential suites available for employee housing.”
There has been slight movement on that file in the past: The RMOW launched its Home Run program in 2017, which matches property owners with businesses looking to house their staff. It had some uptake, but clearly not enough to move the dial.
RMOW staff are also hard at work on a new infill housing policy, through which they are considering a range of policy changes, including: reviewing and updating the RI1 (residential infill one) and RS1 (single-family residential) zones; removing or updating size restrictions on auxiliary residential dwellings; expanding areas where duplexes are permitted; allowing up to two suites for detached homes; allowing auxiliary residential dwelling units in duplex and multi-family buildings; allowing stratas to be created for detached and attached auxiliary residential dwelling units; providing pre- approved unit plans for detached auxiliary residential dwelling; and allowing large lots to be split.
Council will hear more about that later this year.
As for getting homeowners to rent out those empty suites?
“In the future, we may consider ways to encourage or incentivize rentals,” a communications official said.
As the old saying goes: No time like some vague, unspecified point in the future.
