Canada's First Nations Are Using Their Land To Build Dense Housing

It can be easy to be pessimistic about the potential for zoning reform to solve America's housing crisis. Time and again, headlines herald a major zoning reform that ultimately proves unproductive.

Those in need of a deregulatory white pill need only look to the First Nation housing developments rising around the city of Vancouver, Canada.

Development in Vancouver itself is hemmed in by the standard thicket of zoning restrictions and urban growth controls. That's not the case on a 10-acre former rail yard owned by the Squamish Nation. In 2002, a Canadian court ruled that the government had to return some of the land seized from the nation a century ago. A consequence of the transfer was that the Squamish land was freed from the labyrinthine land use controls constraining housing growth in the rest of the metro area.

In 2019, Squamish Nation voters exercised their newfound freedom to build by approving via referendum a 6,000-unit residential high-rise development known as Senakw. It's one of several First Nation housing developments being constructed in ultra-high-priced metro Vancouver. … [Subscribe to continue reading]