Any time the B.C. NDP government makes a housing announcement, there is one word repeated again and again and again for anyone who will listen: affordable.

Affordability is the frame for all the NDP’s housing policies, programs and billions of dollars of program spending. And yet, despite all that effort, the government’s success in actually achieving anything that a normal person might consider affordable, is questionable at best.

Take for example, 1807 Larch St., a five-storey rental building in Kitsilano that replaced a church near West 2nd Avenue.

BC Housing provided $31.8 million in low-interest financing to the developer in 2021, through its “HousingHub Provincial Rental Supply Program,” to lock 54 units (80 per cent of the building) at “at-or below-market level rents restricted to middle-income households within the provincial middle-income limits” for the next decade.

Yet, despite all that money, affordability is a questionable prospect for the first round of tenants.

The Globe and Mail’s real estate correspondent Kerry Gold highlighted that disconnect in an excellent column last week. Units at 1807 Larch St. range from 393-square-foot studios that rent at $2,750 a month, to 519-square-foot one bedrooms at $3,275 a month and 712-square-foot two bedrooms at $4,299 a........

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