Takeaways British Columbia has made great strides in recent years opening up more homes, in all shapes and sizes, to address its severe housing shortage and resulting unaffordability. Unfortunately, one step it hasn’t taken—that neighboring Washington and Oregon have—is lifting the caps on unrelated roommates who can live together, effectively mandating empty bedrooms in homes … Read more
Takeaways Find audio versions of Sightline articles on any of your favorite podcast platforms, including Spotify, YouTube, and Apple. “The piece that is misunderstood about Indigenous cultural fire is sovereignty.” That was one of the first things Bill Tripp, director of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy for the Karuk Tribe, said to me when I … Read more
Takeaways For years, opponents of transit and infill housing in British Columbia mostly succeeded in blocking new homes and transit lines, driving up the province’s notoriously high home prices and rents. Slowly, though, small projects made it through that gauntlet, until late last year, leaders passed a raft of reforms to unlock more homes, in … Read more
Early efforts in California, Colorado, and New York offer lessons to get started.
Find audio versions of Sightline articles on any of your favorite podcast platforms, including Spotify, Google, and Apple. As people across Cascadia buckle under soaring home prices and rents, leaders are scrambling to legalize, or try to legalize, more “middle housing” options amid their single-detached-dominated stock. While options like laneway homes and backyard cottages, duplexes … Read more
This article is part of the series Learning to Live with Wildfires Find audio versions of Sightline articles on any of your favorite podcast platforms, including Spotify, Google, and Apple. It’s time to address the elephant in the room: the best and possibly only practical way to protect homes from fire is to stop building … Read more
This article is part of the series Learning to Live with Wildfires Takeaways Cascadia, along with the rest of the West, is caught on “the wildfire treadmill”: the more we suppress fires, the worse they get; and the worse fires get, the more we suppress them. Small, low-intensity fires, though, can mean fewer high-intensity, destructive … Read more
Find audio versions of Sightline articles on any of your favorite podcast platforms, including Spotify, Google, and Apple. The recent elections in and around Vancouver, British Columbia, created a stir among pro-housing advocates. In one of North America’s most expensive cities to rent or buy a home, numerous parties campaigned on statements that even just … Read more
Find audio versions of Sightline articles on any of your favorite podcast platforms, including Spotify, Google, and Apple. Which North American city will be the first to address its housing crisis with abundant apartments, city-wide? A growing handful of North American states and major cities have been scoring wins in the battle to undo the … Read more
Takeaways British Columbia home prices have soared in recent years, pricing out would-be home buyers and burdening renters while building wealth for homeowners and investors. Three key policies have driven up prices: low property taxes, the principal residence capital gains tax exemption, and the provincial homeowner grant. Leaders in Vancouver and across BC must adopt … Read more
