Are Seattle’s city planners as free to speak as critically about density as Vancouver’s?

I’ll admit it, in general I’m pretty impressed with how Vancouver manages density. However, things aren’t as sunny as they appear up north. Vancouver’s affordability problem was recently given some extra visibility when BC Hydro (Vancouver’s power company) released a report of invoices showing ‘that 18,000 Vancouver condo units in the city are consuming only enough power to keep a never opened refrigerator cool.’  This means that a huge pool of condo unit inventory is sitting empty, doing nothing to satisfy Vancouver’s existing housing demand. And blogger Frances Bula suggests in a great post over at The Vancouver Sun that,

18,000 condos that are sitting empty, presumably while speculators wait for land values to rise or second-homers are out of town at their other places in Paris, Las Vegas, Cabo, Moscow, Beijing, wherever.

But the real meat of this post is the copy of a presentation given by Vancouver housing-centre director Cameron Gray to the Vancouver city council. What Gray states is that if the city does not pay more attention to the growing demand for affordable houses and rentals, and is not more active in building and preserving its existing affordable supply, then,

The concern is that the City is in danger of losing its social diversity and becoming a city of house rich if cash poor empty nesters, double income no kids couples, yuppies, second home owners, etc. with everyone else scrambling to make ends meet, paying too much, living too far away, or living in housing that is inadequate and insecure.  

During his presentation Gray discusses a wide range of real issues, their impacts, and recommended solutions - he points out,

• How condo owners renting out their units have a positive impact on affordability, but that is not the case when speculators buy units and leave them vacant. 
• That Vancouver is failing to build out enough affordable rental housing to meet the demand of the current influx of renters who need affordable housing.
• That new housing is inherently not as affordable as older housing, and existing affordable housing should be preserved.
• And most importantly, that housing supply is a response to housing demand - and the city must keep on top of what that demand looks like and actively manage (and change) density planning when it is clearly not meeting demand.

This was great, Gray was really upfront about the issue and how important it was for the city to adjust its approach towards handling density planning. He talked to the city like they were grown-ups.

Personally, I get the impression that our planners are too scared to rock the boat - because I never hear the DPD nor the Department of Neighborhoods challenge the mayor on his vision for Seattle - and that’s too bad, because Mayor Nickels kind of needs a kick in the rear on the importance of reusing existing development, how demand drives housing supply, and how neighborhoods could be leveraged as partners instead of cast aside as pariahs.