Let's Be Open To New Development Including Densification

Our city and region is facing a housing crisis. According to the Vancouver Sun (April, 2022), Metro Vancouver will need 250,000 more homes over the next 5 to 10 years to offset the housing crunch. However, there has been heated debate at Council and in local media over whether to allow more development, including more dense developments, in Port Moody.

Currently, our city is not meeting its potential in creating new homes. According to the Tri City Dispatch (January, 2022), Coquitlam is out building Port Moody and Port Coquitlam 3-to-1. The Dispatch also reported that in 2021 only 467 homes were built in Port Moody. NIMBYism and aesthetic concerns are some of the drivers behind the lack of new home starts. This lackluster approach to building new homes by policy and decision makers will only worsen the crisis by sustaining the restrictive housing supply and bolstering increases in housing prices. High rises and complexes may be an eyesore to some residents, but that is not an acceptable reason to prevent densification. Residents need more homes to be built in Port Moody. That need should be made as a priority over aesthetics, NIMBYism, and other anti-development perspectives.

Our city's identity as small and quaint is a thing of the past. We are in a region of millions of people, with more immigrating to Metro Vancouver each year. Our growing region is causing a housing shortage and prohibitive housing prices for entry (or re-entry) into the market. By allowing NIMBYism and other anti-development perspectives to persist, we will only be able to blame ourselves for the housing crisis, and not as a partner, alongside our municipal neighbours, in its solution.