That does not describe a cartel -- it describes predatory pricing.

The cartel comes from the fact of how much wealthy landlords control local governments, who then make it onerously difficult to build the amount of housing that is actually needed. I don't know if this is the case in Vancouver but it is absolutely the case in California, with its absurd cases of a run-down laundry mat being declared a "historical property" to block redevelopment.

How is that predatory pricing? Landlords aren't driving alternative landlords out of business by dropping their prices too low for others with shallower pockets to compete.

You are correct, and I am incorrect.

Predatory pricing, also known as undercutting, is a pricing strategy in which a product or service is set at a very low price with the intention to achieve new customers (Loss leader), or driving competitors out of the market or to create barriers to entry for potential new competitors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing

I should have called it "price gouging" or perhaps "profiteering".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging

There isn't really a great word for long-term exploitation of an easy structural advantage, though. Landlords don't have to form a cartel, since (a) everyone has to buy from them, (b) land is limited in supply and (c) the barrier to entry is high. Maybe it's a "natural cartel".

Fair enough. I believe they call that behaviour "rent-seeking" (in the Adam Smith sense) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking#Description Most of the value of the land is from work done not by the property owner, which is just an interesting situation.