Nary a day goes by in Metro Vancouver that a newscast or conversation among friends doesn’t touch on the topic of housing affordability. Whether it’s soaring house prices or homelessness, housing is something that touches us all.
The mayor’s task force on housing affordability, established in December 2014, has been considering ways to create new non-market and affordable rental and ownership housing.
“The most important goal was to create a new affordable housing project,” said Bev Grieve, the city’s director of development services. “I am happy to report that we are actually moving on three affordable housing projects.”
Two of those proposals are scheduled to be completed in 2018.
The Community Living Society and Catalyst, a developer, have teamed up to create a six-unit development at 43 Hastings St. in downtown New Westminster. Three of the units are for clients of the Community Living Society, while the other three units are two- and three-bedroom rental townhouses for families and will have to meet some affordability criteria.
“The work for the environmental assessment and the geotechnical assessment has been done,” Grieve said. “We’re now finalizing the purchase and sales agreement with the proponentand we are expecting a rezoning application on the site to come forward in early fall, so there has been great success on this project.”
A project put forward by Women in Need Gaining Strength would see the creation of a housing project at 630 Ewen Ave. in Queensborough.
“Right now there is some geotechnical work happening on site, and we are anticipating that the rezoning for this will be coming forward in spring of 2017,” Grieve said. “This project is going to provide much-needed affordable housing for families with children. It’s located very close to the amenities that families need such as the community centre and the school.”
The city is also working on plans to include affordable and market housing in the development at Poplar Landing, a city-owned site on the western end of the Quayside neighbourhood. Currently home to a Metro Vancouver combined sewage outfall facility, the site is destined to have a large park, an extension of the waterfront pathway, and market and affordable housing.
Grieve said the city has retained a firm that will be looking at the site planning of this work and will be working with its partner, Metro Vancouver, on plans for the site.
“This work will be coming forward for community consultation in the fall,” she said. “Our goal is to have a shovel-ready application ready for when there will be some senior government programs aimed at affordable housing, which we believe will be happening in 2017.”
On the policy front, the City of New Westminster has developed a tenant relocation policy and a renovictions action plan and has been monitoring housing activity. The mayor’s task force is also exploring the feasibility of developing a rent bank, possibly with a partner organization, which provides a mechanism for tenants to get short-term loans to cover their rent so they don’t lose their housing.
Mayor Jonathan Cote said he originally thought the task force would be short-term and focus on implementing some projects and policies, but given that affordable housing is one of the most critical issues facing the region he now believes it could be in place for longer than first envisioned. While he’s pleased about the two smaller projects that will be coming online, he’s excited about the opportunity for a much larger project at Poplar Landing.
“The policy work doesn’t always get as much attention as a housing project but I think the policy work we have been doing is equally important,” he said. “Our rental housing policy has meant that the City of New Westminster is really leading the region in terms of new rental developments. We hadn’t seen rental developments being built in our community in over 20 years and now we have almost 1,100 units under construction or finished.”
