A seven-story, mixed-use housing development in downtown Vancouver called 12th and Main on April 6, 2026.
Erik Neumann / OPB
By 2045, the population of Vancouver, Washington, is expected to grow by more than 80,000 new residents — a roughly 40% increase.
According to Vancouver’s 2025 Housing Report, the city will need to develop 2,500 new units a year to meet housing demand. But the city is falling well short of that goal for both market-rate and affordable housing projects, as OPB recently reported.
City officials point to a range of factors for the slowdown. That includes rising construction costs, high interest rates, the ongoing effects of tariffs and the difficulty of accessing state funds to develop multifamily, affordable housing units.
Meanwhile, Vancouver is close to finalizing a new comprehensive plan to guide the city’s growth over the next 20 years. The draft calls for updating zoning codes to ease higher-density housing development in neighborhoods, for example, which would align with new state requirements to boost housing development.
OPB’s Southwest Washington Bureau Chief Erik Neumann joins us for more details.
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