Affordable Housing in Kelowna

[tilma]

In regards to 'a need for affordable housing' I encourage you to look at the demographic statistics for Kelowna and see who lives here and what their incomes are. According to the City of Kelowna "Housing Needs Study - 1999/2000" in 2020 there will be 20% of 0-19 year old, 25% of 20-39 year olds, 32.5% of 40-64 year and 22.5% of those older than 65 (13). Now, if we look at who owns and who rents than it will quickly become apparent that those in owner occupied housing are older than 35 with the strongest group being the 65 year olds and over group.
That leaves those under 35 prone to renting or having exorbitant mortgages, living with roomies, living at home or what ever other arrangement there is. Here it should also be noted that over the long-term owners make capital investments that renters cannot make, since they are not building any equity. When a renter moves he moves, whereas a homeowner can work with the accumulated equity pun sale of the house.
There are many in Kelowna that do not and will not qualify for mortgages, such as people on fixed incomes, lone parent families, people who are socio-economically disadvantaged and stuck in many minimum wage jobs. Homeownership is not more affordable, but has been made somewhat easier to attain by credit institutions that earn big for a very long time. Remember, the mortgage holder only owns the percentage that he has paid for...
Places like the Centuria are fairly easy financed, but they are not affordable. We need housing that costs $80,000 or $90,000 for young families, lone parents, seniors, disabled and all the others that have a strict budget in this city. Last time that I checked a mobile home was the only option in that price range or an apartment. And the developer sells only a few units for $250,000 (if I remember correctly) and the rest is sold at the highest price ever.
There is also no set allocation of, let's say 25 percent, to be made to affordable housing by each developer in each and every one of their projects. There are also no provisions to discourage people from flipping new homes and as such artificially inflating the prices. And I could go on...
The reality is that 250,000 is more than most of us can afford. 30% of one's pre-tax income is considered the cut-off to qualify for a mortgage since the CMHC (Canadian Housing and Mortgage Company) is using the same number to see if a person can qualify for a mortgage. But the reality is that too many people spend more than 30% of their income on housing.
The City of Kelowna has not contributed to the housing stock since keep hiding behind the notion that they cannot do anything without other levels of government. There is no intention of moving forward there. But who says that we always need new housing. The City could help people convert illegal suites to legal ones to increase the current housing stock and to alleviate the tight rental market.
You see, more expensive homes contribute more to the tax base. The more taxes Kelownians pay the more is in the coffer for local politicians, policing, etc. Public housing is not considered to be an economic generator… So, Kelowna is really not a place where we can seriously say that affordable housing is on the agenda of City Council and the Mayor. Quite contrary our current council is encouraging development for high income transients.
I will stop here, but I think I will be back and bring some more of my thoughts forward as I feel the need arise…
There are a number of excellent sources for those interested in housing issues:
One could start at the City of Kelowna Website and look for the "Housing Needs Study 1999/2000", or the "Benchmarks and Resources for Affordable, Special Needs and rental Housing". The book by David Hulchanski "Finding Room - Policy Options for a Canadian rental Housing Strategy" (2004), published by CUCS Press Toronto is also most valuable. Dr. D. Hulchanski has been appointed to the only endowed chair in housing studies in North America. And last, there is the book "Canadian Cities in Transition" by P. Filion and T. Bunting (2000) Oxford University Press. That is an all Canadian book examining and describing the changes of Canadian cities in the 21st century. There will be a newer edition soon!

[John Zeger]

CRCP has adopted a policy of requiring developers of new residential projects to allocate 20% of all units as affordable housing. This policy is working very well in Boulder, Col. Similar policies have been put in place in scores of other municipalities in the U.S. and some in Canada such as Vancouver which has a 10% requirement.

[John Zeger]

The City Planning Department's recommendations for how to increase the stock of affordable housing in Kelowna are being met with poor reviews. The scheme to provide grants of $2,500 per unit for developers and the creation of a miniscule housing opportunities fund presently containing a paltry $300,00 has landed flat on its face with several city councillors. According to the Daily Courier Councillor Robert Hobson said the "proposed grants to developers to entice them to build affordable housing just won't cut it." Councillor Barry Clark said "we're fooling ourselves if we think this will solve the problem" and Councillor Ron Cannan said "we've got a long way to go." The planning department's recommendations were based on a report by the Social Planning and Housing Committee which was endorsed by city council on March 21, 2005. Michele Rule, an announced candidate for city council, sits on the committee. Check out the full article in the Daily Courier at www.kelownadailycourier.ca/archive/2005/07/27/stories/8278_full.php4?latest_date=2005/07/27

[John Zeger]

At the city council public hearing and meeting of Aug. 23, 2005 John Zeger on behalf of CRCP made a presentation urging city council to take a serious look at implementing an inclusionary housing bylaw for Kelowna in order to increase the number of affordable housing units in the city. After Mr. Zeger concluded his remarks, Councillor Sharon Shepherd moved that the planning department investigate the potential of an inclusionary housing bylaw. The motion was passed unanimously.

Although the MoveKelownaForward organization maintains that it is concerned about affordable housing, there were no members of that organization present at the public hearing.

[John Zeger]

Lindsay Henry of Kelowna recently wrote a letter to Castanet where she was critical of city council for its decision to turn the mobile home park near Gyro beach into a parking lot saying this action flies in the face of the city's objective of creating more affordable housing. Mrs. Henry is correct as mobile homes are an excellent source of affordable housing and there should be more mobile home parks in Kelowna and we should hang on to the ones we have. City council's decision to convert this mobile home park into a parking lot comes just a couple of weeks after it approved another luxury highrise condominium for the downtown. So where is city council's committment to create more affordable housing? Kelowna has become a city where only the wealthy can afford to live and our city council couldn't care less.

[John Zeger]

Having suspected this for a few years, it came as no surprise to me when it was recently announced that Kelowna has the oldest demographics of any city over 100,000 in Canada. And although I don’t have anything against seniors, being close to that age myself, I think that it would be healthier from a sociological perspective to have a more balanced population with a larger percentage of young families with children as this would help build the social capital that is lacking in our city.

The present demographics of Kelowna have resulted from the operation of the free market and the key has been the type of housing that has been built. Developers have responded to market demand and have built the type of housing that would maximize their profits i.e., retirement accommodation. This has happened and is still happening with the blessing of our city council. As a result there is an insufficient amount of affordable housing being created for young working families.

One city councillor recently said “It is time to stop talking about [creating] affordable housing and to start doing something about it.” The irony is that the time to create affordable housing was years ago but city council has continually put this subject on the backburner being preoccupied with other matters such as, recently, Westside amalgamation.

Our city desperately needs more affordable housing for young families now and this won’t be accomplished by building more highrise condominiums as research has shown that highrises are not desirable places to raise young children. But all of this is academic until we fill the leadership vacuum that presently exists on Kelowna city council as the latter is the biggest obstacle to building affordable housing that we have.

[John Zeger]

As this is Homelessness Awareness Week, I think that it is worth noting that there is no issue in the city that better illustrates the failure of the current city council than that of creating affordable housing. It was a year ago that the Task Force on Affordable and Special Needs Housing made eight recommendations to council on how to increase the stock of affordable housing here. Some of these recommendations were outrightly rejected and some were sent back to staff for further study, but none has resulted in a meaningful number of affordable units having been created to date. The one area that shows some promise is that of requiring developers to provide affordable housing in exchange for granting rezonings to higher densities, but it was city staff and not council that took the initiative here this past July as it became apparent to staff that council was too frozen in its indecision to take any firm action.

Providing affordable housing is obviously not a priority area for our city council, development is. Having discussed the legalization of secondary suites until they were blue in the face, council last April decided that it needed yet more public input on the issue and sent the matter back to staff where it still sits. Contrast that with the city’s timetable for deciding on the Milroy proposal for downtown redevelopment which is scheduled to come back before council for a final vote by Christmas. Development proposals that will change the face of the city are sped through without adequate public review while the issue of legalizing secondary suites is put on the backburner. Kelowna city council’s ordering of priorities is obvious here and creating much needed affordable housing is nowhere near the top of the list.

[Rick Shea]

Yes, all the talk about market forces and the "law" of supply and demand are irrelevant here. We have a huge demand for affordable housing, and virtually no supply, so who is coming in to fill that need?

Answer: no one.

[John Zeger]

More and more people are speaking out like Eileen Fazan when she said that “developers could be required to put [affordable] suites in each development.” (“Affordability Crunch”,Daily Courier, Oct. 22). This process is known as mandatory inclusionary housing and has resulted in thousands of units of affordable housing having been created elsewhere in North America. It is readily apparent that as incentives to developers have failed to accomplish the desired goal, a heavier hand is needed.

Manditory inclusionary housing would be superior to Kelowna city council’s present policy of encouraging the creation of affordable housing through the use of density bonuses. The latter works by often letting a developer build more units than would otherwise be allowed under the Official Community Plan in return for a guarantee that half will be affordable. Such bargaining results in more OCP amendments which have in part been responsible for the dramatic increase in land prices locally as it creates speculation that a lax city council will continue to bend to the desires of developers to build more units on a lot than is allowable under present city bylaws. This then adds more fuel to the fire that is driving up housing costs for everyone.

[John Zeger]

I couldn’t disagree more with the Daily Courier’s editorial “Sweeten deal for affordable housing” (Oct. 23) which recommends incentives and government subsidies for creating affordable housing locally. The editorial echoes a call for subsidization by a local developer in its front page article “If gov’t pays, developers will pay.” As developers are notorious for calling on governments to let the free market operate on its own without government interference, it is hypocritical for them to now call for subsidization.

All that developers have been doing of late in our growing city is creating high-end housing which profits them while doing nothing for the community. Creating some affordable housing is part of the cost of doing business and this cost should be borne by developers and not through the higher taxes which will become necessary if its creation is publicly subsidized. As some members of our community profit disproportionately from growth, they should also bear a heavier share in paying for its costs.

And regarding the point made in the editorial that the best that the city can do is chip away at the problem of a lack of affordable housing, I think that this is utter nonsense. “Chipping away” is what the city has been doing for the past few years as the deficit in the number of affordable units locally has grown larger and larger each year. The failure to boldly and meaningfully address this problem is an indictment of our city council and their incompetence in dealing with the problem.

[Rick Shea]

Yes, homeless camps in Kelowna and other cities, slums in Vancouver, dumpster divers, poverty level wages for many and a growing gap between the wealthy and the poor...is it just me, or does it seem as though Canada is devolving into a Third World country?

[Rick Shea]

From today's Kelowna Courier:

Dear Sir:

So, after all the profits developers have made by focusing on high end housing for the wealthy in Kelowna, there are proposals for the city to subsidize developers in order to create affordable housing.

In almost any other business where profits are accompanied by negative social or environmental consequences, those costs are borne by the business as one of the routine costs. But developers are clearly above all this, and goodness knows we wouldn’t want to get in the way of them purchasing their next Hummer, vacation, or high end house. So, yeah, let’s stick it to the taxpayers and ordinary citizens again.

As long as developers continue to make their profits, that’s what really matters here. Isn’t it?

Sincerely,

Rick Shea

[John Zeger]

In a survey of cities in Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand the urban planning organization Demographia ranked Kelowna as having the 13th least affordable housing market among the cities surveyed. Kelowna city councillor Brian Given has finally gotten his wish -- Kelowna has become a world class city!

[John Zeger]

With all of the furor over Councillor Barrie Clark's suggestion that the city provide daycare services for its workers at public expense, I am surprised that there wasn't a similar reaction to city council's move prior to the Christmas holidays to lower the development cost charges applied to new secondary suites. It was the decision of council at that time to sharply lower the fees charged to developers in order to stimulate the production of affordable housing in our city. However, by taking the financial burden off developers someone will have to pay for the roads, parks, and other infrastructure that is being used by the occupants of these units and that someone is the taxpayer. Councillor Clark made that point during council's discussion but then, as he has done in the past, after articulating that perspective he then voted with the rest of council and against what he had earlier enunciated. If someone understands this man, I wish they would explain him to me.

While the city badly needs more affordable housing, this should be a made a requirement for approving all applications for new residential development and not something that is constantly being negotiated with developers as is presently done. And under no condition should the taxpayer end up footing the bill for creating affordable housing. This should be made part of the cost of new growth and development and as such be borne by developers and new residents. However, I seriously doubt that this will ever be done as long as members of the present city council remain in office as they have been elected with the support of the development community and related business concerns and sit on council as their minions.

[John Zeger]

Kelowna residents in need of affordable housing were the losers and developers the big winners at last Monday’s city council meeting where the majority of council voted against a staff recommendation that would have formalized a working policy to require developers to provide some affordable housing in return for an increase in density. Councillor Carol Gran, a regular promoter of the developers’ cause on council, led the pack calling the proposal “blackmail and extortion”.

But is it really blackmail to ask that developers contribute some affordable housing and give something back to the community in return for the windfall profits that they make? Over 130 California communities don’t think so having adopted inclusionary housing bylaws which have created tens of thousands of housing units at affordable prices.

But then, Councillor Gran is less concerned about creating affordable housing than she is about standing up for the interests of developers. And she is not alone on council in that regard, being joined by Councillors Blanleil, Clark, Day, and Given who all voted against the proposal along with her.

This group of five was quickly applauded by the local chapter of the Urban Development Institute which didn’t like the coercive nature of the measure and wanted it to be voluntary and incentive based. In other words, they wanted even more density (and profits) than what they were already being given. Kelowna will never produce a meaningful amount of affordable housing created in a socially and fiscally responsible manner as long as those city councillors who put the interests of developers ahead of the needs of the community remain on city council.