By Amy Chen

A former homeless advocate running for a council seat in Vancouver has pledged to slap a 50% Flipping Levy on real estate speculators on the city.

The Flipping Levy is just one of the measures announced by Judy Graves and the OneCity team as part of their “Made-In-Vancouver Housing Affordability Plan” tackle Vancouver’s acute housing crisis^[1]https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/onecity/pages/233/attachments/original/1505247979/Housing_Affordability_Fact_Sheet.pdf?1505247979
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The Flipping Levy would apply a 50% tax to the speculative profit made within the first year, and decrease to 35% in years two and three.

The levy would apply to people like Georges Mavroidis, who bought the home at 3107 E 21st Avenue for $1.2 million on July 28, 2017,^[2]https://evaluebc.bcassessment.ca/Property.aspx?_oa=QTAwMDAwMloyRA==, and put it back on market just a month later for $1.65 million, for a potential profit of $450,000^[3]https://www.rew.ca/properties/R2200582/3107-e-21st-avenue-vancouver-bc.

Freedom of the City award winner also promised a local luxury property surtax of 1.5% on the wealthiest 1% and 0.5% on the wealthiest 5% of residential property owners in Vancouver.

“People in Vancouver understand that solving the housing crisis means building real affordable homes,” Graves said. “Every dollar generated by these policies will be used to build thousands of guaranteed affordable rentals all over the city.”

The plan also calls for the establishment of a city-wide Affordable Guarantee to ensure rents are fixed at 30% of tenants’ income in all City-owned rentals, in perpetuity, and opening up all Vancouver neighbourhoods with new city-wide inclusionary zoning to put affordable housing before “sprawling mansions and luxury developments”.

“Affordability for low and middle income families, seniors, and workers needs to be guaranteed by the city and not left to the free-market and development community to determine,” Graves added.