A new federal housing fund announced in the federal budget earlier this month has been welcomed by B.C. municipalities hoping the monies are easily accessible.
“This is a new fund and happy to see it, but we want to make sure that it’s not held up and that it’s easily accessible to municipalities to be able to put it to good use to get housing,” Kelowna mayor Colin Basran told Global News Saturday morning.
A statement has been issued by the B.C. Urban Mayors Caucus regarding the $4 billion Housing Accelerator Fund aimed at creating more affordable housing. The caucus is made up of a dozen municipal mayors including Basran.
“In the past, there have been other pools of funding available, for example, the rapid housing initiative, which hasn’t maybe rolled out as quickly as we would like to see, nor has it reached mid-sized communities like Kelowna,” Basran said.
The statement from the caucus reads in part: “To be effective, the program must be easy to access and as flexible as possible. Cities should be empowered to use the funding to meet individual communities’ needs including hiring staff, updating permitting systems, streamlining processes, acquiring land, and other solutions that will get the job done faster and see more housing built. There is no shortage of housing applications coming in, we just need the capacity and resources to expedite them.”
The B.C. Urban Mayors Caucus believes the Housing Accelerator Funding should be disbursed to local governments without requiring matching provincial funding or project approval up front.
Typically with housing funds, Basran said, the federal government will release the money only when the province steps up to match it.
“Sometimes some provinces can. Sometimes they can’t. And what we’re saying is, we appreciate (matching funds) would be great, (but) make this money available to municipalities now without having to wait for matching funds,” Basran said. “Let’s get this money flowing and out the door.”
Although Penticton was not included in the open letter from the caucus, the community is dealing with the same issue.
“Relevant in our community and everywhere else as well. The other thing is that it’s not new. This didn’t just happen last week or even last month, this has been building over the years and it has reached a crisis point,” said Penticton city councillor Judy Sentes.
The caucus stated that as municipal leaders, they should be able to leverage the funding themselves working with the provincial government.
According to the caucus, B.C. is home to four of the fastest growing communities in Canada. More than 100,000 people migrated to B.C. in 2021 but in that year, only 47,607 new homes were started.
The caucus stated that keeping up with the pace of growth puts a strain on municipalities, adding that in a matter of months, Victoria and Vancouver rents jumped 20 per cent between late 2021 and early 2022.
The 2022 federal budget 2022 commits to doubling the number of new homes built over the next 10 years — something the caucus said can only be achieved with cities as partners.
“I haven’t seen a federal housing project open in Kelowna in my time on council, so this would significantly help get some housing built.”
“The federal government is calling for 100,000 new homes by the years 2024, 2025,” Basran said. “So what that number does or equates to in Kelowna? I can’t exactly say or what will we apply for the funds to use in Kelowna? It could be for planners and help planning staff so we can expedite applications…but it could, we could utilize it to buy land, to partner on affordable housing projects. So that could be a possibility. ”
Basran said the new funding is something that staff and council will discuss in the coming weeks.