City losing ground in rentals quest

Goal of adding 3,000 units by 2025 is fast slipping away

LaurenVanderdeen lvanderdeen@burnabynow.com

Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley found himself defending the city’s track record on rental housing after some city councillors hinted it should require developers to build more rentals

Amid discussion last week around a large-scale master plan for Burnaby LakeVillage, which plans to build thousands of new homes, Coun. DanielTetrault noted there wasn’t a breakdown of how many purpose-built market rentals the developer expects to build

He said he hopes the city’s upcoming community plans will include more purpose-built rentals “going beyond” what is voluntary for developers to build

“Just relying on the developer to build purpose-built rentals is not necessarily going to work,”Tetrault said “And we can’t depend on that. And so I’m hoping and maybe we need to look at some of our bylaw changes ”

Coun Alison Gu said the city needs purpose-built rentals to give tenants housing security

“Purpose-built rental allows a renter to plan a future

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