Victoria’s proposed new official community plan (OCP) is an opportunity for the city to advance its commitments to affordable housing. The affordability crisis remains the number one concern of Victorians, and the intention of the refreshed OCP is to expedite new housing.
In general, the city supports affordable housing in three main ways.
The first is through policy. The city has constantly updated policies over the past several years to encourage non-market housing providers to propose affordable housing in Victoria. The Fast Track for Affordable Housing has accelerated the delivery of affordable projects by reducing red tape and prioritizing applicable projects. The new OCP, and related bylaws and regulations, will add to this suite of policies by offering “bonus density” for non-market housing developments in select parts of town, including large town centres (e.g. near Mayfair Mall), community villages (e.g. Cook Street Village), and in adjoining “priority growth areas.” Bonus density means that areas otherwise pre-zoned for four storeys would, over time, allow for six storeys as a right for affordable projects, thereby improving the financials for non-market housing projects.
Second, the city makes direct financial investments in affordable housing projects via the Housing Reserve Fund, which is partly capitalized by property taxes, but mainly fed into by Community Amenity Charges that the city levies on strata projects. Since the beginning of the current mandate, the city has dispensed about $6M in grants to affordable housing projects. Far from being symbolic handouts, these grants are essential investments that help non-market housing providers close equity gaps and get projects over the line. Many of the grants go towards projects of the Capital Region Housing Corporation (CRHC). The province has recently made changes to how cities can acquire amenity charges from developers, which will unfortunately make it harder to recapitalize the Housing Reserve Fund, but the city’s commitments to these investments will remain under the new OCP.
Third, the City of Victoria approves affordable housing projects. It is crucial to understand that the city does not build housing. Unlike the CRD, the city does not possess a housing corporation, which means Victoria must usually work with a non-market housing provider to deliver affordable homes. The CRHC or BC Housing, for instance, must propose a project to the city for it to be approved and eventually built. Since October 2022, the city has approved 669 affordable homes, and an additional 297 of supportive housing, which is considered a type of affordable housing, bringing the total to 966 homes. This number represents 100% of the affordable projects that have been proposed to the city.
For the past many years, even before 2022, there has not been a single affordable housing project proposed to the City of Victoria that has been rejected by city council or staff. These approvals are part of the record-setting number of homes that have been approved and built in Victoria in recent years. The current council has already approved nearly 7,000 homes in total. Victoria was the only city in B.C. to exceed the six-month housing target imposed by the province, as part of a cumulative five-year target of 4,902 homes.
For the past 30 years, senior governments have failed to invest in affordable housing at rates that would have kept up with skyrocketing demand. To be clear, we need a lot more affordable housing in Victoria and everywhere else across the country. There is a bottomless depth of demand and a massive affordable housing deficit to fix. Cities need non-profit housing providers, from CRHC to BC Housing, to propose even more than the thousands of new homes they are already committed to delivering.
Victoria stands ready to support and approve these projects as soon as possible, and the new OCP will create new tools to stimulate more projects, which are essential as we look to tackle the affordability crisis in our community.
Jeremy Caradonna
Victoria councillor and vice-chair of the Capital Region Housing Corporation
