This week the city approved a subsidy exceeding 1 million dollars to a real estate corporation for a market housing development. The project, located in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighborhood, will not be affordable but has been put forward by city council under the false guise that an unregulated rental market is inherently affordable.

The new housing development was approved under the city’s Rental 100 program, formerly called the STIR program. The five story mixed-use building in Kitsilano will offer 83 units of market rental housing, located at 3002-3036 West Broadway. Following the STIR model, the Rental 100 program offers the developer subsidies in return for the construction of rental housing, with no upper limit on rents.