...it’s possible for a developer to put in a 15% affordability component but other tenants will have to pay for it...

This. "Affordable" housing always means someone else is subsidizing the reduced revenue.

There is such a lack of inventory in this region that the return to school this fall is going to send shockwaves across the rental market.

Thousands of students are out apartment hunting right now.

What's the vacancy rate at the moment? These projects are slated to come online in 2024/25 right?

Effectively zero and getting worse.

This. "Affordable" housing always means someone else is subsidizing the reduced revenue.

It couldn't be truer with the "% affordable units" model - the only way builders can compensate is to increase rents in all other units and as such slants new rentals as "inefficient" upmarket. With all steps of the construction process being stupid expensive right now and rentals having much delayed rewards vs condos it's just making things as difficult as possible.

City hall's overriding priority should be getting out of the 1% and under vacancy rates. With available stock always getting massive demand it forces rents at the margin way upwards, which is why even "affordable" units aren't going to be cheap. New stock was never cheap - but older rentals and even condos used to be. Yet with so little inventory available it means the floor for the cheaper stuff gets pushed way up. The gap between cheap and expensive isn't much actually, but when the price of admission is so high every dollar counts.

EDIT: I'm just going to add - I don't know why the "more supply" line baffles so many Victorians. The vacancy rate is a very straight forward measure of how many people are looking for rentals vs how much inventory is available at market prices. Renters and landlords alike know openings get flooded with applicants. The most practical, battle-tested method to narrow down the applicant pool... is to increase rent. Even for landlords who want to charge below-market, it's too much of a hassle because they'll get an insurmountable amount of applicants who know marked-down places are a rarity. The surest way out of this problem... is to bring more rentals online so that everyone isn't so bloody desperate fighting for every inch of square foot available in classifieds.

There is such a lack of inventory in this region that the return to school this fall is going to send shockwaves across the rental market.

Thousands of students are out apartment hunting right now.

Not just students. The BC government slated some time in September as their back-to-the-office date. I don't imagine many workers actually left the CRD during the pandemic with how insulated we were from Covid, but most new hires from out of town are probably remote working and waiting for everyone else to get back.

EDIT 2 - As someone who checks rentals every few days - I just saw Peterson's website (landlords of the Hudson District rentals) and this was the first time I've ever seen with no vacancies in any of their buildings. Even early 2020, they'd have a handful of units with immediate availability. I'm sure we're going to see a lot of stories of students not being able to find a place next month.