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The NIMBY Empire: How Jericho Lands Became the Hill Vancouver Chose to Die On

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Welcome to West Point Grey, Where Time Stands Still and So Does Housing

If you’ve never strolled through West Point Grey, let’s paint a picture: it’s quiet. Like eerily quiet. Heritage homes sit behind tall hedges, Audi SUVs idle silently in immaculate driveways, and lawn signs read like haikus of polite aggression. “NO TO TOWERS.” “DENSITY ≠ COMMUNITY.” “WE LOVE OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD.”

But don't be fooled by the flowers and compost bins. This is the frontline of Vancouver’s housing war.

Because just beyond those hedges lies the Jericho Lands—a sprawling 90-acre site slated for up to 13,000 new homes, including rentals, social housing, and mixed-use towers. It’s one of the most ambitious projects Vancouver’s ever attempted. A transit-friendly, Indigenous-led, master-planned community designed to be a real dent in the city’s housing supply shortage.

And the locals? They’re ready to go to war over it.

“This isn’t Paris. This isn’t Tokyo. We don’t need that kind of density here,” one angry resident told council during the April 2025 public hearing, voice trembling at the thought of a 30-storey tower anywhere near her detached home.

To be clear: that tower would be over 500 meters away, across an arterial road, and likely obscured by trees. But logic has no place in Vancouver’s NIMBY-industrial complex. This is not about zoning. It’s about preserving a 1950s suburban fantasy at all costs—even if that means sabotaging the future of an entire city.

How Did We Get Here? The Billion-Dollar Backyard and the Weaponization of “Neighbourhood Character”

To understand why a project like Jericho Lands triggers a full-blown identity crisis in West Point Grey, you need to understand the history of the neighborhood—and how it quietly became one of the richest stretches of land in North America, cloaked in polite protest and ocean breezes.

First, the facts:

  • West Point Grey has a median household income of $130,000+, well above the Vancouver average of $88,000 (Statistics Canada).

  • The average detached home price in the area? Between $3.5 and $7 million, depending on the view. Some listings casually ask $11M+ for tear-downs.

  • Despite this wealth, the population density is absurdly low—hovering around 2,000 people/km², while surrounding neighborhoods like Kitsilano are double that, and downtown is over 5,000/km².

This is not an urban village. It’s a low-rise fortress, locked in time and protected by a zoning spell that prohibits anything taller than a modest fruit tree. And Jericho? That’s the first crack in the spell. Because suddenly, developers aren’t proposing a single fourplex—they’re proposing an entire city inside the city. And it’s not just any city. It’s:

  • 13,000 new homes—a literal neighborhood's worth of supply.

  • Up to 30-storey towers.

  • 20 acres of parks.

  • Daycares, retail, and a SkyTrain station.

  • And most controversially? It’s being built by the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, who co-own the land with federal developers.

This isn’t a concrete cash grab. It’s Indigenous-led, transit-oriented, mixed-income housing in a city bleeding affordability. And the residents of West Point Grey… hate it.

“We support reconciliation, but not towers.”
“This isn't about racism. It's about shadows.”
“We’re not anti-housing—we just want the right kind of housing.”

That “right kind,” by the way, is detached homes on quarter-acre lots, owned by the same people since 1986.

Neighbourhood Character: The Most Dangerous Phrase in Urban Planning

Let’s talk about the phrase that launched a thousand lawsuits: neighbourhood character. It sounds harmless. Quaint, even. A little heritage here, a little tree canopy there. But in Vancouver, “character” has become a euphemism for exclusionary zoning, aesthetic gatekeeping, and deeply coded class politics. Because when homeowners say, “this doesn’t fit the character of the neighbourhood,” what they’re often saying is:

  • “I don’t want renters on my street.”

  • “I don’t want buildings taller than mine.”

  • “I don’t want poor people, students, or immigrants moving in.”

  • “I don’t want to lose control.”

And it's always cloaked in politeness: “We’re just concerned about the scale.” “We want to ensure livability.” “We don’t want to create another downtown.”

But dig deeper, and the message is clear: this land is ours, and we don’t want to share.

The $5M View, the $0 Policy Impact

Here’s the kicker: these are the same neighborhoods that:

  • Fight duplexes and fourplexes on residential streets.

  • Reject bus lanes and bike lanes for disrupting “tranquility.”

  • Oppose school expansions because “kids bring noise.”

  • And then turn around and complain about housing unaffordability like it’s a mystery.

These are $5M homeowners giving emotional testimony about how a mixed-income tower four blocks away will ruin their quality of life. And the city? It listens. Because these residents:

  • Vote in every election

  • Write long, angry letters

  • Show up to every council hearing

  • Fundraise for legal challenges

  • And are very good at weaponizing process to stall policy

This isn’t a debate. It’s a power imbalance. Jericho Lands is just the most public example of what’s been happening in every rezoning application in Vancouver for the last 30 years: wealthy homeowners fighting to preserve scarcity.

From Public Hearing Meltdowns to Parking Lot Lawsuits: A Brief History of NIMBY Power in Vancouver

If you think Jericho Lands is the first time Vancouver’s upper crust has tried to halt progress with passive-aggressive signage and council tantrums, oh no—this is a city with a rich tradition of planning paralysis. NIMBYism in Vancouver has range. It’s multi-generational. It's institutional. And it’s armed with clipboards.

Let’s take a quick tour of the Hall of Shame:

1. The Broadway Plan Backlash (2022–2023)

The city proposed densifying the Broadway Corridor—one of Vancouver’s most transit-connected areas—with mid- and high-rise rentals, many geared toward workers, families, and seniors. Cue the outrage. Local groups like the “Fairview Residents Association” launched petitions warning of “towerization,” “loss of sunlight,” and “neighborhood annihilation.”

Never mind that these towers were near subway stations. Or that Vancouver had just declared a housing emergency.
The NIMBYs came for it anyway—armed with PowerPoints, outrage, and quotes from Jane Jacobs they didn’t fully understand.

2. Kitsilano’s Apartment Wars

Kitsilano—a beachside neighborhood historically defined by low-rise apartments and student housing—somehow became a battleground over… a 6-storey rental building. Residents protested shadow impact on the local Whole Foods.

One woman claimed her dog’s mental health would suffer due to increased foot traffic. Another worried that renters might bring “unregulated e-bikes.” Yes. That happened.

3. Point Grey’s Jericho Fiasco… But Also Everything Else
Long before Jericho Lands, Point Grey residents blocked:

  • Bus rapid transit lanes

  • Bike paths near Jericho Beach

  • Duplex zoning on side streets

  • Social housing proposals near schools

The unifying theme? “We’re not opposed to change. Just not this kind of change.”
(Spoiler: it’s always not this kind of change.)

4. The Oakridge Redevelopment

A plan to transform the Oakridge mall into a dense, transit-connected urban center with thousands of units?

You guessed it—opposed. Too dense. Too shiny. Too many strangers. Never mind that the Canada Line was right there. Never mind that it replaced a mall parking lot.

Weaponizing Process: How the Game Is Played

What makes Vancouver’s NIMBYs so effective isn’t just the rage—it’s the process fluency. They know how to delay, derail, and destroy projects without ever saying “we don’t want renters.” Here’s the playbook: demand more consultation, insist on heritage reviews, file environmental concerns, request traffic studies, sue for procedural errors, challenge height variances, launch local petitions with 12,000 signatures from people who haven’t rented since 1978.


This isn’t citizen engagement. It’s a form of bureaucratic siege warfare. And it works. Projects stall. Developers walk. Timelines stretch into decades. Meanwhile, the housing crisis worsens. And the same people responsible for blocking supply go on CBC to ask, “Why is rent so high?”

Who Really Pays for All This? The Hidden Cost of Vancouver’s Love Affair with NIMBYism

Let’s be clear: NIMBYism isn’t just annoying. It’s not just a political inconvenience, a planning headache, or a punchline for urbanist Twitter. It is, quite literally, costing the city billions—in lost opportunity, rising rents, social inequality, and broken dreams. And while the lawn sign crowd insists they’re just “protecting community character,” what they’re really doing is transferring wealth upward and locking everyone else out.

The Economic Cost: Welcome to the World’s Most Expensive Waiting Room

Every stalled project means:

  • Delayed tax revenue

  • Skyrocketing land holding costs for developers (which get passed on)

  • Construction inflation (currently over 6%/year in B.C.)

  • Delayed housing completions in a city that’s already 40,000 units short (CMHC)

Take Jericho Lands. Every year of delay costs tens of millions in foregone rental revenue and housing stock. If just 30% of the 13,000 units were rentals, that’s about 4,000 homes that could house 8,000 people. Now delay that for five years because someone’s worried about tower shadows falling on a raccoon. Multiply that by every other project halted by NIMBY tantrums—and you’ve got a city bleeding affordability while pretending the problem is foreign buyers.

The Social Cost: Gatekeeping Disguised as “Good Planning”

NIMBYism is often framed as concern for the environment, safety, or heritage. But let’s be real: it’s almost always about keeping outsiders out—especially renters, students, low-income families, and immigrants. The consequences?

  • Wealthy neighborhoods stay wealthy. No affordable units get built there, and the poorest communities absorb all the density and service strain.

  • Families get displaced. Young parents can't find 3-bedroom rentals, so they move to Langley—or leave the province entirely.

  • Newcomers get boxed out. Immigrants end up crammed into illegal basement suites in Burnaby while empty bedrooms line the west side of Vancouver.

This isn’t community preservation. It’s class segregation with zoning overlays.

“We need to maintain livability,” says the resident with a $6.5M home.
Livability for who, exactly?

The Political Cost: When NIMBYs Write Policy, Everyone Else Pays

Here’s the part that stings the most: the system rewards them. Because boomers vote. Homeowners donate. And councils—especially at the municipal level—are scared to lose swing neighborhoods to the pitchfork mob. So we get density in the poorest neighborhoods, rezoning that avoids rich areas, housing targets that exclude the west side, endless consultation with no teeth, projects scaled back until they’re affordable in theory but unbuilt in reality.

And while NIMBY groups tweet furiously and show up in neon at public hearings, the real power still lies with the 65-year-old who threatens to sue if you touch the laneway trees behind her wine cellar.

Jericho Is the Tipping Point

Here’s why Jericho Lands matters more than the others:

  • It’s Indigenous-led.

  • It’s massive.

  • It’s in one of the richest, most exclusionary neighborhoods in the country.

  • And it’s visible.

If it fails—or gets watered down to “micro-duplexes with heritage paint”—it will send a message to every city in Canada:

“Don’t bother. The homeowners win.”

But if it goes through, if Vancouver holds firm, if the towers go up, the parks get built, and renters get to live five minutes from the beach? Then we finally get proof that housing doesn’t have to be a battle. It can be a beginning.

What Happens When We Say Yes: The Case for Building Through the Noise

Let’s imagine something unthinkable in Vancouver planning circles.. What if the city just… built it anyway? No 12-year consultation marathons. No backroom compromises. No trimming 30-storey towers to “gentle” 4-storey townhomes that cost $2.4M each. Just a firm, unapologetic “Yes.” Because here’s the wild part: we know what happens when we build. We’ve seen it.

When Cities Say Yes, Housing Happens

Toronto, despite its own raging NIMBY battles, managed to approve Ontario’s Bill 23, which forced density changes across multiple zones. In Montreal, plexes are still allowed on nearly every lot, keeping prices more sane. Even Calgary—yes, Calgary—is zoning for citywide R-CG, effectively legalizing 4-plexes everywhere.

Meanwhile, Vancouver keeps debating whether a duplex will ruin the "village feel" of a $6M neighborhood filled with hedge walls and invisible driveways.

“It’s not that we don’t need housing,” one Jericho opponent said in a council hearing.
“It’s just that this isn’t the right place for it.”

Let’s be clear: if Jericho isn’t the right place, then nowhere is.

  • It’s on Indigenous-owned land.

  • It’s near future SkyTrain access.

  • It’s massive enough to scale.

  • It’s being built with rental, co-op, and social housing baked in.

  • And it’s surrounded by some of the lowest density in the entire city.

If not here, where? If not now, when?

Saying Yes Isn’t Radical—It’s Responsible

Saying yes means:

  • 13,000 families get homes.

  • Tens of thousands of renters get relief.

  • The city finally gets tax revenue to fund infrastructure.

  • Climate goals are met by building near transit, not in the valley.

  • Reconciliation is respected—not just in speeches, but in square footage.

And it means finally sending a message to the city’s NIMBY aristocracy:

You don’t own the future just because you bought in 1987.

A City That Builds Is a City That Works

We’re not saying every project needs towers. We’re not saying consultation doesn’t matter. But at some point, the needs of everyone else—renters, workers, newcomers, youth—have to matter more than the aesthetic preferences of a few angry homeowners with pristine views.

We are out of time. Vancouver’s housing crisis isn’t theoretical anymore. It’s economic sabotage, social exclusion, and urban stagnation—and it’s being driven by people who already have everything.

Jericho Lands isn’t a threat. It’s a lifeline. So let’s build. And when the towers rise, and the lawns get a little less silent, and the corner café finally sees people under 60? Maybe then, we’ll start to remember what a real neighborhood looks like.

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