Introduction

In 2010, Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) was heralded as a solution to urban sprawl, car dependency, and rising greenhouse gas emissions (Boarnet et al., 2017). TOD aspires to create vibrant, walkable, and sustainable communities by integrating housing and commercial developments near public transit hubs. It promises a transformative vision: suburban areas evolving into 15-minute cities where residents could live, work, and play without reliance on cars. Enthusiasts celebrated TOD as the antidote to fragmented urban landscapes, combining density with livability while addressing the growing demand for affordable housing.

Fast forward to 2024, the reality in Burquitlam—a designated Transit-Oriented Area (TOA) in Metro Vancouver—offers a sobering contrast to this idealized vision. While redevelopment in Burquitlam brought high-density housing and new transit connectivity, it has also led to displacement, gentrification, and exclusion. Hundreds of low-cost rental apartments have been demolished and replaced by luxury condominiums and market-rate rental units. Lower-income families, including a once-thriving Syrian refugee community, have been priced out, severing social ties and cultural networks. Today, Burquitlam’s streets, lined with modern high-rises, feel sterile and devoid of the character and community they once had.

This paper examines the question: How do the economic, social, and policy dynamics of Transit-Oriented Development contribute to displacement and inequality in designated TOAs like Burquitlam, and what role can inclusionary zoning (IZ) play in mitigating these effects?

Situating the redevelopment of TOAs within broader capitalist processes of commodification and accumulation, this paper draws on a Marxist framework to analyze the role of the secondary circuit of capital in shaping urban redevelopment. It highlights how economic imperatives prioritize profit over people, undermining TOD’s inclusivity and sustainability goals.

This paper introduces IZ as a potential policy solution to address these challenges. IZ can counterbalance market-driven redevelopment forces by requiring developers to integrate affordable housing into new projects or contribute to affordable housing initiatives. Through this lens, this paper advocates for a reimagined approach to TOD, which aligns urban growth with equity, ensuring the vision of a vibrant, inclusive community can be realized for all residents.

The Promise and Perils of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD)

TOD seeks to reduce car dependency by fostering dense, walkable, and transit-connected neighbourhoods. While TOD aligns with sustainable urban planning ideals, its implementation often accelerates gentrification and displacement, as seen in Burquitlam, Metro Vancouver.

Chronological Development of TOD in Burquitlam

Year	Event	Details
2007	Coquitlam Affordable Housing Strategy	Coquitlam’s Affordable Housing Strategy highlighted the importance of preserving affordable rental housing, particularly near transit hubs. However, reliance on voluntary developer participation limited its effectiveness, leaving renters vulnerable to redevelopment pressures.
2012	Concert Properties Acquires Whitgift Gardens in Burquitlam	Whitgift Gardens, a low-cost rental property, became a redevelopment target due to its consolidated ownership. This is a perfect example of a developer redeveloping a low-rise rental apartment building rather than seeking a land assembly for TOD.
2015	Syrian Refugee Resettlement at Whitgift Gardens	During the federal Operation Syrian Refugee initiative, 26 families temporarily settled at Whitgift Gardens under fixed-term leases. The redevelopment plans disrupted these families’ fragile stability, forcing them into a competitive housing market. One refugee expressed their anxiety: “Our pain—where we going to go live?” (Jones, 2023, p. 543).
2016–2017	Evergreen SkyTrain and Burquitlam-Lougheed Neighbourhood Plan (BLNP)	The Evergreen SkyTrain opening positioned Burquitlam as a TOD hub. The 2017 BLNP was meant to facilitate growth through higher-density zoning but lacked enforceable mechanisms to protect vulnerable renters from displacement. The city ignored the recommendations of the 2007 report to include renter protections in the BLNP.
2019	Burnaby’s Rental Use Zoning Bylaw	Burnaby introduced a mandatory Rental Use Zoning Policy requiring one-to-one rental replacement, setting a benchmark for balancing growth with housing protections. Starkly contrasting with Coquitlam’s voluntary measures, which only covered some relocation assistance.
2021–2024	Coquitlam’s Tenant Protection Policy	First introduced as a voluntary measure, Coquitlam is now seeking to make its Tenant Protection Policy a bylaw that includes volunteer relocation assistance, reflecting a slow shift toward stronger renter protections. However, its earlier reliance on voluntary measures exacerbated displacement in the critical early years of redevelopment, and it still falls short of requiring developers to build non-market housing as a percentage component of the overall new housing units in a redevelopment..

Aerial Photography of Burquitlam in 2009 (left), and in 2024 (right) (City Maps | Coquitlam, BC, 2020)

The Perils of TOD Implementation

While TOD promised to create vibrant, sustainable communities, its application in Burquitlam has disproportionately impacted lower-income renters and marginalized groups, such as the Syrian refugee community. Policies like the BLNP prioritized density and growth without adequately addressing the social costs of displacement. The reliance on voluntary developer participation in Coquitlam’s early housing policies further compounded these issues. This imbalance underscores the need for TOD frameworks to integrate enforceable protections, ensuring redevelopment benefits all residents rather than exacerbating housing inequities. 

Land Assembly and Economic Mechanisms in Redevelopment

Capitalist pressures and the prioritization of profit shape the redevelopment of TOAs like Burquitlam, resulting in significant social costs. Land assembly, the process of consolidating adjacent parcels for redevelopment, exemplifies how economic and urban planning intersect to facilitate capital accumulation, often at the expense of vulnerable populations.

Land Assembly: The “Low-Hanging Fruit” Phenomenon

In Burquitlam, consolidated low-cost rental properties like Whitgift Gardens became prime redevelopment targets. Developers strategically focused on such properties because they avoided the complexities of fragmented ownership seen in single-family neighbourhoods. Cunningham (2013) explains this preference, noting that single-family land assembly incurs a premium of 17–18% due to negotiation costs with multiple owners. This economic logic reinforced the targeting of rental properties despite their critical role in housing lower-income tenants.

Neil Smith’s rent gap theory further illuminates the capitalist forces at play. This theory describes the disparity between a property’s current rental income and its potential income post-redevelopment (Smith, 1979). In Burquitlam, older rental buildings with low rents created wide gaps, incentivizing developers to replace affordable housing with high-value condominiums or market-rate rental units. This dynamic underscores how land assembly reflects broader trends in capital’s relentless pursuit of surplus value.

(Jones, 2023)

The Secondary Circuit of Capital and Redevelopment

David Harvey’s concept of the secondary circuit of capital offers critical insight into the nature of redevelopment. Urban spaces, once repositories for surplus capital, become fixed within the built environment—layered into the concrete, steel, and lives of those who inhabit these structures (Harvey, 2006). However, this fixing is violently unravelled when capital needs to be reallocated or reinvested. As it occurs under capitalism, redevelopment functions like the clear-cutting of an old-growth forest: what was once stable, functional, and rooted is abruptly torn apart. The process is not neutral—it is destructive, uprooting communities and ecosystems for profit.

In Burquitlam, this “ripping out” of capital is literal and metaphorical. Entire apartment complexes—physical embodiments of decades of life, memory, and meaning—are reduced to rubble. The built environment, initially created to house people, is reclassified as a financial liability needing renewal to yield higher returns. This decoupling is inherently violent, not just in its physical destruction but in the rupture it creates within communities. Displacement tears apart the social fabric, destabilizing the lives of those forced to move. As capital is extracted from these spaces, it leaves behind emotional and psychological devastation akin to the scars of deforested land.

For displaced renters, this violence is deeply personal. The destruction of their homes translates to a loss of belonging and security, replaced by uncertainty and precarity. One Syrian refugee from Whitgift Gardens described the anguish of this upheaval: “The way we are living now… anxiety is getting so high. We are so nervous about it” (Jones, 2023, p. 543). This testimony speaks to the broader emotional toll of displacement—harm which is systemic, enduring, and disproportionately borne by the most vulnerable.

This cycle of destruction and reinvestment reveals the commodification of urban space. Redevelopment, driven by the imperatives of capital accumulation, does not treat housing as a social good but as a financial instrument. This dynamic transforms places like Burquitlam into battlegrounds where profit motives overshadow the needs of communities, leaving behind a trail of metaphorical and literal violence.

The Financial Logic of TOD and Housing Inequities

Economic incentives embedded within TOD frameworks further exacerbate displacement. Developers favour high-density, market-rate housing due to faster investment returns than purpose-built rentals (PBRs). The Housing Research Collaborative (2023) highlights that high development costs, exclusionary zoning, and lengthy approval processes disincentivize affordable housing projects, reinforcing market-driven redevelopment patterns. The prioritization of profit over affordability illustrates how redevelopment intensifies housing inequities. Without enforceable policies to counterbalance these dynamics, TOD areas risk becoming exclusive enclaves accessible only to higher-income households, further marginalizing lower-income renters.

Broader Social Consequences of TOD Redevelopment

The redevelopment patterns fueled by TOD extend beyond the immediate economic mechanisms and land-use changes, fundamentally reshaping the social fabric of neighbourhoods like Burquitlam. This transformation has disproportionately affected vulnerable groups, including lower-income tenants, seniors, and immigrant families, who depend on affordable housing near transit hubs. For Syrian refugees settled in Burquitlam, the consequences of redevelopment were particularly devastating, revealing the human cost of displacement under a profit-driven urban planning framework.

The Refugee Experience: Navigating Displacement and Precarity

The Syrian refugee families resettled at Whitgift Gardens under the federal government’s Operation Syrian Refugee initiative faced unique challenges. Many of these families arrived in British Columbia between 2015 and 2016 and were placed in fixed-term rental units as a temporary housing solution. While Whitgift Gardens provided an initial sense of stability, the lack of long-term housing options quickly turned this stability into a precarious reality. When redevelopment plans were approved, eviction notices came swiftly, leaving families scrambling to find new housing in an already unaffordable market.

For these refugees, the displacement was not merely an economic inconvenience—it was a profound disruption to their process of rebuilding lives after escaping conflict. Many struggled with systemic barriers, including limited English proficiency, unfamiliarity with Canadian housing systems, and cultural stigmas surrounding certain housing options. One refugee described the psychological toll: “If my father or my mother call me, what you want me to tell them? I tell them I live in basement? ‘You live in Canada and you live in basement?’ Like, basement, oh my god” (Jones, 2023, p. 540). The stigma of being forced into inadequate housing, compounded by rising rents, left many families in limbo, unable to fully integrate into their new community.

Social Fragmentation and Loss of Community

The displacement of Syrian refugees from Burquitlam highlights a broader pattern of community fragmentation. Whitgift Gardens had become a hub of mutual support, where families shared childcare responsibilities, language learning resources, and cultural traditions. This organic network of resilience was abruptly dismantled when redevelopment forced families to scatter across Metro Vancouver. The loss of this support system exacerbated the integration challenges, isolating families in unfamiliar neighbourhoods far from transit and social services.

The broader social consequences of TOD redevelopment echo this fragmentation. Displaced residents often find themselves excluded from the very benefits TOD promises—access to transit, walkable communities, and proximity to employment. These exclusions are structural, driven by the prioritization of high-density market-rate housing which caters to more affluent demographics. As lower-income residents are priced out, neighbourhoods become socioeconomically homogenous, losing the diversity which once enriched their character.

The Violence of Displacement

Displacement, is a form of systemic violence. It disrupts not only the physical space of people’s homes but also their sense of identity, belonging, and stability (Luk, 2017). The uprooting of families from their communities is an assault on their emotional and psychological well-being, leaving scars that extend beyond the immediate logistics of finding a new place to live. While the plight of Syrian refugees has been documented through ethnographic research, it is crucial to recognize many more voices remain unheard. Marginalized groups often occupy the lowest-cost rental stock and are politically underrepresented, making their experiences invisible in public discourse and policymaking. The systematic prioritization of profit over people silences these communities, perpetuating cycles of displacement and erasure.

Policy Failures in Transit-Oriented Development

Net Loss of Affordable Rental Housing

Coquitlam’s experience with TOD highlights how policy failures have led to a significant net loss of affordable rental housing. In 2013, the city had 5,216 rental units, including 1,252 purpose-built low-cost rentals in Burquitlam, which accounted for 24% of Coquitlam’s total rental stock (Yeung, 2014). By 2024, the citywide number of rentals had plummeted to approximately 3,700 units (City of Coquitlam, 2024), a staggering 29% decline over a decade. The erosion of affordable housing is particularly alarming given that 86% of Coquitlam’s remaining rentals—around 3,182 units—are in TOAs, exposing them to heightened redevelopment pressures. This housing crisis has rendered Coquitlam the second most expensive mid-size city to rent in Canada (Coquitlam Is the Second Most Expensive Mid-Size City to Rent in Canada, 2024), with average asking rents for purpose-built and condo apartments reaching $3,011 per month—18% higher than the provincial average of $2,549. The exorbitant rents underscore the inadequacy of Coquitlam’s policy framework to preserve affordability amid TOD-driven redevelopment.

This loss of purpose-built rentals (PBRs) has devastating effects on housing affordability. PBRs are critical in stabilizing market rents, as they provide long-term, lower-cost housing options. Their destruction creates a compounding positive feedback loop, driving market rents even higher. The broader regional context reflects this phenomenon: from 2014 to 2023, the average rent for a one-bedroom, unfurnished unit in Metro Vancouver increased by approximately 145.39%. This inflationary pressure is directly linked to the erosion of affordable housing stock, a trend starkly evident in Coquitlam. Without robust protections for future and existing PBRs, redevelopment in TOAs will continue to exacerbate affordability challenges. The 2021 Tenant Protection Policy, which aimed to mitigate displacement, initially lacked enforcement, as it was introduced as a voluntary policy for developers rather than a binding bylaw. While updates to the bylaw in 2024 include modest improvements, such as adjusting compensation rates for displaced tenants and updating moving cost compensation to reflect inflation, these changes remain insufficient. No comprehensive measures, such as mandatory one-to-one rental replacement policies or IZ requirements, have been implemented to curb the ongoing loss of affordable housing.

The inadequacy of Coquitlam’s response becomes particularly apparent compared to Burnaby’s approach. Despite its limitations, Burnaby’s adoption of the Rental Use Zoning Policy in 2019 far outpaces Coquitlam’s minimal protections. Coquitlam’s reluctance to adopt enforceable measures reflects an ongoing prioritization of economic growth over housing stability, perpetuating cycles of displacement and gentrification. The destruction of Coquitlam’s rental stock exemplifies the broader systemic failures of TOD policy. Without significant investment in purpose-built rentals and enforceable measures to preserve affordable housing, the city’s affordability crisis will only deepen. Coquitlam’s approach thus serves as a cautionary tale, underscoring the urgent need for policy frameworks which prioritize equitable redevelopment and protect vulnerable populations.

Challenges in Implementing Inclusionary Zoning: Challenges and Policy Recommendations

Coquitlam’s Renter Protection Policy: An Incremental Approach

In 2021, Coquitlam introduced a Renter Protection Policy as a voluntary measure, offering developers the option to provide compensation and support for displaced tenants voluntarily. Mukhija et al. (2010) argue such voluntary programs are “less likely to be effective in delivering affordable housing,” emphasizing the need for enforceable mandates to ensure consistent outcomes.

Recognizing these deficiencies, a Council-in-Committee meeting on November 25, 2024, proposed transforming the policy into a mandatory bylaw. These changes represent progress in addressing tenant displacement, but the policy still falls short of more comprehensive IZ frameworks.

(Council and Committee Meetings | Coquitlam, BC, 2024)

Burnaby’s Inclusionary Zoning: Evolution and Challenges

Burnaby’s Rental Use Zoning Policy (RUZP), established in 2019, mandated 20% of units in new developments be designated as below-market rentals, with rates 20% below the median market rent. This policy aimed to integrate affordable housing within new developments, mitigating displacement pressures. However, Mukhija et al. (2010) caution against rigid policies fail to account for market dynamics, recommending balancing IZ requirements with developer incentives to maintain market participation.

In October 2024, Burnaby amended the RUZP in response to developer demands and new provincial legislation requiring such policies to be codified into financially viable bylaws (Burnaby Slashes “sacrosanct” Affordable Rental Requirements in New Developments, 2024). The amendments reduced the non-market rental requirement from 20% to 15%, with 10% of units at 20% below median rents and 5% at median rents. These adjustments aimed to sustain development viability amid rising construction costs and interest rates. While these changes illustrate the need to pair IZ policies with incentives such as density bonuses and cost offsets (Mukhija et al., 2010), Burnaby’s policy remains more robust than Coquitlam’s current approach.

Implementing Effective Inclusionary Zoning (IZ)

Mukhija et al. (2010) emphasize IZ must be part of a broader housing strategy rather than a standalone solution, stating “although IZ can contribute meaningfully to affordable housing stock, it is not a panacea for housing affordability challenges.” For IZ to effectively reduce displacement in TOAs, it must be designed to deter the redevelopment of existing affordable rental buildings. By mandating the inclusion of affordable units in new developments or requiring contributions to affordable housing funds, IZ can shift development focus toward more equitable land assemblies, such as underutilized commercial spaces or single-family properties, thereby preserving existing affordable rental stock.

However, implementing IZ policies faces challenges, including developer resistance due to perceived impacts on profitability and the need for supportive provincial legislation to ensure financial viability. “[IZ policies] are more likely to succeed when paired with density bonuses and other cost offsets ender the requirements revenue-neutral for developers” (Mukhija et al., 2010). Coquitlam’s incremental progress demonstrates a move toward enforceable tenant protections, but it pales compared to Burnaby’s relatively more robust measures.

Discussion and Conclusion

IZ offers hope for embedding affordability within urban redevelopment, but its success hinges on robust, enforceable policies prioritizing people over profit. Burquitlam’s transformation into a transit-oriented hub paints a stark picture of what happens when policies fail to protect vulnerable populations. Displacement has severed the ties of long-standing communities, leaving behind streets lined with high-rises but stripped of the character and belonging that once defined them. While Burnaby’s Rental Use Zoning Policy demonstrates the value of enforceable IZ measures, Coquitlam’s reliance on voluntary initiatives has deepened the crisis, showing “voluntary programs are less likely to be effective in delivering affordable housing” (Mukhija et al., 2010). Yet even IZ, as Mukhija et al. (2010) note, “is not a panacea for housing affordability challenges.” True change demands systemic reforms which preserve affordable rental stock and steer development toward equity, ensuring Burquitlam’s future reflects inclusion, not exclusion

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