Dear Editor: The Mayor and his BCA council's defence of their massive demovictions in recent years is getting more and more ridiculous. Bizarrely, Mayor Corrigan noted that owners of older buildings in Metrotown will find holding onto them difficult as their taxes increase with the value of land.
Of course they are, because the mayor and his councillors have created a speculative frenzy in Burnaby's Metrotown area.
In 2003, investors in rental properties could buy rental units for around $70,000 per unit in both New West and Burnaby. According to the Goodman report, the going rate in New West is about $288,000 while Burnaby jumped to $551,000 per suite on average. If you look at the Metrotown area, three apartments recently sold for over $1 million per suite.
This is due to Corrigan and his council bending over backwards to please developers and passing the Metrotown plan update, which opens up the entire Metrotown area to rezoning for luxury highrises. New Westminster, on the other hand, has so far been unwilling to demolish their older rental stock due to the fact that they understand that there is a severe shortage of low-end rental units in Greater Vancouver.
Corrigan pretends that the city’s rezoning policies have no relation to the increase in property values and the massive increase in taxes rental building owners face. Besides this being ludicrous, even the rental industry’s Goodman report understands this. Uniquely, Burnaby rental properties in Metrotown are listed as “development opportunities” rather than the industry-standard investment rental income. The massive increase in property values is also pushing landlords to renovictions, if they are holding on to their buildings, because their tax bills have tripled in recent years.
ACORN members in Burnaby are increasingly being renovicted as landlord are trying to squeeze more money out of their tenants. The mayor and council have to stop denying that they have any role in the present housing crisis and admit they are actually making it worse.
Murray Martin, Burnaby
