As letters to council from local home builders attest, the permit process in Saanich takes longer than it should.
“With replies ranging from 2 to 4 months and ‘forever,’” says an excerpt from a letter to council from Casey Edge of the Victoria Residential Builders Association.
In trying to fix this, district staff came to council with a proposal to tighten the rules related to prioritization of permit applications for affordable housing.
The recommendation — unanimously accepted by council on March 18 — was to give priority only to non-market rental and ownership units or cooperative housing that is owned and operated by non-market housing providers. All other applications will be tended to on a first come, first served basis.
Previously, there were several tiers of affordable housing types that would get varying levels of priority. But, according to Lindsay Chase, the district’s planning director, it seemed like this system was being taken advantage of.
“This criterion has been abused by applicants who would include the absolute minimum number of qualifying units (i.e., one strata unit at 10% below market), only to have this offer retracted later in the application process after they had benefited from the prioritization service,” says a letter from the planning department to council recommending changes.
Chase did acknowledge some of the backlog is also due to staff shortages.
“It was early this year that we finally achieved full staff complement in the planning department,” she told councillors. “And that lasted for three days.”
In his letter to council, Edge opposed having any prioritization system at all, citing studies that show all types of housing, even luxury homes, are needed to address the current shortages in the housing ecosystem.
In pressing for the new rules to be accepted, Mayor Dean Murdock noted the need to encourage affordable housing while pointing out the need for a system that isn’t so loose that every new development tries to qualify.
“When everything’s a priority, there are no priorities,” he said.
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