The Capital Regional District (CRD) is developing a program to help increase the supply of housing in rural communities.
“Rural communities in the CRD struggle with a lack of housing options,” said the regional body in a news release. “Solutions are ... challenged by environmental limits, servicing constraints, higher building costs and a lack of funding for small-scale housing projects.”
The program, which is subject to CRD board approval in 2025, could offer solutions to these rural-specific limitations.
“Current programs offered by senior governments are designed for an urban context,” said Justine Stark, the CRD’s manager of service delivery for the Southern Gulf Islands, who added that urban development programs are designed to increase density on a scale that isn’t feasible in smaller communities.
If approved, this program will allow the CRD to provide financial assistance to rural homeowners to help them build secondary suites and cottages, in exchange for affordable rent commitments.
It will also allow the regional body to invest more pre-development funding in rural affordable-housing projects, as well as help non-profit housing providers better manage hard-to-navigate government regulations.
“Non-profit groups aren’t developers,” said Stark. “They need help ... developing housing, especially in the complicated regulatory framework of an unincorporated community that doesn’t have a municipal government, doesn’t have a city council.”
The CRD plans to pilot this program on Saltspring Island and the Southern Gulf Islands.
“My hope is that ... we’re able to design a program that has enough uptake to justify further funding it," said Stark, "and that we’re able to demonstrate the kinds of solutions that are appropriate to smaller communities."
