Gilbert Jacob (Chief Gibby)

Canada wanted to support the building of more rental housing.

In 2022, the Squamish started construction.

They held a groundbreaking ceremony.

Squamish elders were there, the mayor was there, and so was Justin Trudeau, the prime minister.

I mean, that means this project's pretty damn special, right?

After the ceremony, the towers started rising fast.

Because when neighbors can block projects and take real estate developers to court, that slows everything down.

It creates delays and uncertainty that cost developers real money.

These are hidden costs that are usually pretty hard to quantify.

Basically, developers are willing to pay big money, hundreds of thousands, to avoid battles with NIMBYs.

The paper estimates that in L.A., the slow and messy permitting process is responsible for about a third of the construction costs of a project.

In fact, in 2019, Vancouver got rid of almost all single-family zoning.

The city allowed duplexes, and in 2023, they allowed multiplexes.

Yeah, now people on the internet were defending the Sanak project.

When we talked to Chief Gibby, who helped lead the fight to get this land back in the first place, we were standing in a park right next to the construction site.

It was afternoon and the towers cast these long shadows.

And to me, that's important.

These towers, they are a case study in what's possible, how big you can build and how quickly, if you don't have to follow the regular rules.

And look, the Squamish are very clear about their main goal for this project.

Their goal is to make money, to provide for the next seven generations.