Apartments in a new rental building in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighbourhood were expected to be affordable, but some say the opposite is the case.
A 36.5-square-foot unit in the building at Larch Street and West 2nd Avenue is offered for $2,600 a month.
A 550-square-foot one-bedroom apartment is offered for $3,200, while an 800-square-foot two-bedroom apartment costs $4,300 a month, leading to some confusion about what “affordable” means.
“I think it’s crazy. So expensive,” Vancouver resident Lucy McQueen told Global News.
“The median income of my family and that is too expensive for the size.”
Her roommate Joanna Quigg also said the prices were very high, but she was not too surprised.
“Given current rents in Vancouver, I wasn’t completely shocked by the prices,” she said.
“It’s an area where a lot of people want to live. I know the apartments are pretty small. But I think we were looking for a two-bedroom apartment recently and the average prices we saw were $3,500 and up.”
Tsur Somerville, a professor at UBC’s Sauder School of Business, told Global News that rental prices are no higher than those normally seen in the market.
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“I think the issue we’re concerned about is that rents for something that’s actually intended for middle-income tenants are much closer to market levels than we want,” he said.
The provincial government said the developers at 1807 Larch Street received a low-interest government loan to build rental housing at below-market or market rates.
Eighty percent of the units range from studio to two or more bedrooms and are intended for middle-income households with annual household incomes of approximately $85,000 to $191,000.
“So the question of where the middle is is raised because you include all people who have an income in this catch-all term,” Somerville said.
“If they had instead used the average income of renter families, for example, the result would have been much lower.”
Amenities in the building include a rooftop terrace, a barbecue area, bicycle storage, air conditioning in the apartment and a washer and dryer.
Applications are currently being accepted and units will be available in September.
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
