A panel provided recommendations aiming to increase the supply of affordable housing in one of the District of Columbia’s most affluent areas.

This 2019 panel is part of a series of ULI panels that assist some of the nation’s most expensive cities with strategies to increase access to affordable and mixed-income housing.

The panel assignment stemmed from the mayor’s plan to provide 36,000 housing units across the city by 2025, with 12,000 of those being low-and moderate-income units. Panelists evaluated how to distribute the affordable housing units more equitably across the city, with a specific focus on the placement of units in the Rock Creek West area.

Invited to St. Thomas after hurricanes Maria and Irma, a panel provided strategic recommendations to the Virgin Islands Housing Authority and government leaders.

The 2019 panel considered strategies for:

• Integrating the existing affordable housing stock into the surrounding neighborhood;
• Helping new communities become more resilient and reduce consumption of natural resources;
• Creating an equitable economic development vision for the next five, 10, and 15 years; and
• Creating a cultural theme and design principles to tie the area together and brand it as a unique location.

ULI’s Advisory Services was invited by Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation, the Community Impact Real Estate Society (CIRES), and ULI British Columbia to Vancouver, British Columbia (BC) to convene a Virtual Advisory Services Panel (vASP) to address the intersection of work and housing in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighborhood. The panel was specifically tasked with making recommendations on safe, sustainable housing solutions for workers who are engaged in full-time employment or training and who are housing insecure.

Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside has a rich history of culture and community, having been home to indigenous populations and communities of color for decades. The neighborhood has also experienced significant removal and displacement driven by economic and policy decision-making. Despite these challenges, there remains a strong sense of pride in the Downtown Eastside, championed by longtime residents and local business owners.

Anchored in honoring the history and resilience of the Downtown Eastside neighborhood, the panel’s recommendations fall into two broad categories: (1) Commitment to production and affordability and (2) Enhancing and strengthening housing and employment-focused supportive services.