Jeff Bateman
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Housing 101

3/31/2023

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Update: Nov. 2, 2023
New Provincial Legislation for Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing (SSMUH)
- Announcement 
- Technical briefing powerpoint 
"Modelling future scenarios cannot account for unforeseen circumstances, the changing nature of housing, real estate markets and other factors, but preliminary analysis indicates the province could see over 130,000 new small scale multi-unit homes in B.C. over the next ten years."

- "OCP: The Three Most Important Letters In BC's New Zoning Rules" - CBC Metro Matters 
- "New Legislation Aims to Create More Small-Scale Housing" - CBC News, Nov. 1
​

Housing Needs Report: "Requiring all local governments to update HNRs (every five years) using a standard method, for a more consistent, robust, understanding of both local housing needs currently and over the next 20 years." 

Official Community Plans: "OCPs to be updated every five years with public engagement; plan for enough homes for forecasted growth over the next 20 years (rather than 5); include policies that address a wider range of housing types
(e.g. affordable housing, rental housing, housing for families, etc.)


Municipal Bylaws/Zoning: "Moving away from site-by-site rezoning or spot-zoning; require zoning bylaws to better match housing needs and OCPs; small-scale, multi-unit homes will be zoned upfront within city bylaws (eliminating long-zoning process to build a row home, townhouse)." 

​October 
* Short-Term Residential Accommodations Act (Bill 35) - Oct. 16, 2023 
​* New rules for short-term rentals (Province of BC) 
* Sooke Airbnb accommodations + Vrbo listings

* Municipal and Regional Destination Tax Program (Destination BC)
* Sooke's Regional Tax Proposal Gains Momentum (SNM, Sept. 11, 2023)
* Regional Hotel Tax Will Boost Tourism Sustainability (SNM editorial) 
* Sooke Accommodation Tax Sparks Controversy (SNM, Sept. 25)

* Sooke to Port Renfrew Tourism Plan (June 2008)
"To provide a sustainable source of funding, the communities could implement the 2% additional hotel room tax (AHRT), which would generate approximately $102K annually. One challenge in Sooke to Port Renfrew is that no more than one third of the area’s accommodation properties (those with four or more rooms) would be taxable, so this minority would be responsible for funding destination marketing activities for the benefit of the majority."

 September 
* Targets Released For First 10 Municipalities (Province of BC)
* Sample housing target requirement (City of Victoria) 
* "We Can Achieve These Targets: Vancouver Island Mayors Address New Targets" (CTV News, Sept. 27) 
* "'Naughty List' Mayors Wonder Where the $$$ will come from" (Vancouver Sun, Sept. 26)

* Government of Canada Unlocking $20 Billion for 30,000 More Apartments Per Year (Department of Finance, Sept. 26)
* Enhanced GST Rental Rebate To Build More Apartments (Department of Finance, Sept. 13) ~ "For a two-bedroom rental unit valued at $500,000, the enhanced GST Rental Rebate would deliver $25,000 in tax relief." 
* "Trudeau Calls On Municipalities to Step Up on Housing Action" (Global News, Sept. 13)

* CMHC: Estimating How Much Housing We'll Need By 2030 (report released on Sept. 13). "We maintain our 2022 projection that Canada needs about 3.5 million additional housing units by 2030 to restore affordability ... Most of Canada’s housing supply gaps are in Ontario and British Columbia. Quebec and Alberta are also projected to need more supply because of economic growth." 

*
Rent Increases ​(+3.5% allowable in 2024) + CBC News (Sept. 11) + Ravi Kahlon statement

* CMHC: Approval Delays Linked With Lower Housing Affordability (July 13)

* "Progress on Homes for BC" (provincial website) 


Updated: April 10, 2023 

Ministry of Housing
- Homes For People Action Plan (announced April 3, 2023) 
- Technical briefing presentation
- Updated map of funded housing projects across BC 
- Newly launched (March 31) Permit Connect BC portal intended to simplify permitting processes  

- Belonging In BC: A Collaborative Plan to Prevent and Reduce Homelessness 
"This Plan sets out the next steps and a framework to be implemented over the next three to five years in partnership with Indigenous peoples and organizations, communities and all levels of government. It is an iterative, responsive and living Plan that builds on successes and measured impacts for future phases." 

Four pillars of the Homes For People plan (detailed on pp. 16-27) 
"Unlocking more 
homes, faster
- More small scale, multi-unit housing (townhomes, duplexes and triplexes)
- Make it easier and more affordable for people to rent out secondary/basement suites
- Work with municipalities to make sure more homes are built in communities, faster
- Speed up permitting and approvals to get homes built faster
- Become a North American leader in digital permitting
- Deliver more homes and services near transit
- Launch BC Builds – A new program dedicated to delivering homes for middle-income people
- Expand B.C.’s construction workforce and spur innovation
- Explore new ways to get more rentals built
- Build more homes with mass timber


Delivering better, more affordable homes
- Thousands more social housing units
- Deliver 4,000 additional on-campus rooms for post-secondary students
- End discriminatory age and rental restrictions in stratas
- Protect affordable rental units through $500 million fund
- Create more housing through partnerships with Indigenous communities
- Revitalize co-op housing


Supporting those with the greatest housing need
- New income tested renter’s tax credit
​- More homes to support people experiencing homelessness
- New actions to close encampments
- Partner to redevelop and replace single room occupancy units in Vancouver's downtown eastside 
- Revitalize and expand aging BC Housing properties
- More Rent Bank support to help tenants in crisis keep their homes

Creating a housing market for people, not speculators
- 
Implement a “Flipping Tax”
- Stricter enforcement on short-term rentals
- Solve renter/landlord disputes faster and get tougher on bad-faith evictions
- Turn more empty units into homes by expanding the Speculation and Vacancy Tax to additional areas
- Crack down on criminal activity in real estate
- Offer more protections for renters displaced by redevelopment"

Media coverage of the action plan and housing summit ...  
- "Province's Program to Boost Housing Short on Details" ~ Times Colonist, April 9 (feedback from Oak Bay's Kevin Murdoch, Highlands' Ken Williams, Esquimalt's Barb Desjardins & Saanich's Dean Murdock)
- "Housing Summit Begins Day After Premier Announces Housing Plan" ~ Global News 
- "BC City Planners Embarking on Missing Middle Housing" ~ Times Colonist 
- "Minister Quells Mayors Fears Over Upzoning of Neighbourhoods" ~ Vancouver Is Awesome, April 4 
- "BC Desperately Needs Ottawa to tie Immigration Levels to Housing" ~ Vancouver Sun, April 3
- "BC to introduce house-flipping tax and expand secondary suites" ~ CBC, April 3 
​

Random from my laptop notes taken at the summit ... 
UBCM President Jen Ford in her opening remarks 
"Province should be applauded for hitting re-set and encouraging new approaches. I know our members share the goal of increasingly supply of attainable housing." 

Terry Beech, Burnaby MP and Parliamentary Secretary on Housing
- Federal government is committed to an $80b housing strategy by 2030, less than 40% of which is spent to date
- $7.7b invested in BC so far, 23% of total national funding
- Need for a high-density counterpart to the "Vancouver Special" style of post-war housing 
- "We need to incentivize creative solutions" 

BC Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon
- $4.2b in provincial funding over next three years for housing
- Homes for People priorities to become legislation in fall 2023 
- Goal: Close gaps in supply to meet demand 
- Goal: Create more small-scale multi-unit homes near transit that fit in with existing neighbourhoods

Vancouver Mayor Ken Simm
- City of Vancouver aspires to rapid permitting goals: 3 days for simple renovations; 3 weeks for new SFD and townhomes; 3 months for mid-rises; one year for larger projects
- Explore possibilities for 3D printed homes
- Densify wherever possible, i.e. housing atop schools, rec centres 

Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke
- Acclerated housing must proceed in lockstep with infrastructure needs
- An entire new classroom is birthed daily at Surrey Memorial Hospital 

Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto 
- Prioritization in permit queque to affordable housing projects
- Judicious use of public hearings 
- In our urban environment, building homes for people, not cars 
- Wants to see quicker action at federal and provincial levels; amend the Local Government Act to reward public amenities; eliminate the GST on rental housing. 

Labour Shortages and Supply Chain Disruptions 
- Need to maximize work force participation, recognize & speed-up approval of foreign credentials and temporary work permits ~ Bridgitte Anderson, Greater Vancouver Board of Trade + statement on Homes For People plan 
- "If we're to solve housing shortage, we need contractors at the table. 90% of contractors in BC have less than 20 employees ... we must accommodate new Canadians and rebuild our communities ... contractors will go where there is less risk to do business, so local governments must provide clear, open, predictable processes." ~ Chris Atchison, BC Construction Association 
- Local governments face own hiring problems for building officials (qualified through Building Officials Association of BC) and technical staff drawn from same talent pool the construction industry accesses; supply chain impacts include shortages of fire hydrants and street lights; limited responses to RFPs and lack of competitive bids also delay construction schedules ~ Jeremy Holm, Development Approvals Director, City of Nanaimo 
​

Original Post: March 31, 2023
The Union of British Columbia Municipalities' Housing BC Together Conference is this week in Vancouver with a program covering multiple fronts ~ the need for rapid housing growth to meet accelerating demand in some (if certainly not all) communities, densification best-practices, indigenous housing partnerships, labour and supply chain issues, homelessness, development permit delays and regulation of short-term rentals included. 

Given the evolving policy landscape at provincial and municipal levels, a Sooke staff and council contingent will cross the pond to attend.  In doing the advance homework, I'm assembling another link-heavy explainer for my own use and repeated reference. Again, as with other subjects, I'm encouraged by the degree to which the issue (now routinely framed as a "crisis" given dizzying housing and rental cost increases) is understood, studied, statistically documented and backed by phased strategies leading to decade's end at least. This follows a long period of federal and provincial inattention after the "golden age" of housing starts in the 1960s and 1970s. We're definitely, of necessity, in another such renaissance in the wake of two master plans launched in 2018: the federal National Housing Strategy and, in our part of the country, the Province of BC's Homes For BC. 

Two fundamental documents to start: 
~ Opening Doors: Final Report of the Canada-British Columbia Expert Panel on the Future of Housing Supply and Affordability (June, 2021)
~ A Home For Everyone: A Housing Strategy for British Columbians (UBCM, Jan. 2018)

And this key contextual point: "Canada’s housing system is one in which the vast majority of housing is constructed, owned and operated in the private market. Just over two thirds (68%) of houses are privately owned by their occupants while another 27% are privately operated rental units. Less than 5% of all housing is operated in the public and community “non-market” sector, where rents are set administratively, rather than by market forces."  - Background Primer on Canada's Housing System (April, 2021, prepared for Office of the Federal Housing Advocate)

I've charted the latest wave of incoming (confirmed and potential)  #Sooke development in this September, 2022 blog entry. Our activity is to be contrasted with the relatively sleepy growth in other CRD municipalities (as documented by Greater Victoria advocacy group Homes for Living). Saanich is one example of a relatively slow-growth local government that may be subject to BC's new Bill 43 - Housing Supply Act.  At the outset, it's expected that eight to ten BC municipalities that are falling short of the housing-start targets in their respective Housing Needs Reports will be held accountable. 

While not exceeding growth as dramatically as Langford, for notable instance, the District of Sooke is hitting its own targets with upwards of 1,000 new units to be completed in the short-term future (three-year horizon, probably, pending Development Permit approvals). Nearly half are rentals (a split of market-rate and affordable) in addressing one of the top priorities in our 2019 Housing Needs Report.

As challenging as our rental market has become, it helps that in 2011 Sooke became one of BC's first municipalities to permit secondary suites in all zones, a practice the Ministry of Housing now wants to see legalized province-wide. 

Sooke's still-incomplete new OCP features a set of progressive housing policies and actions (pp. 135-141) that promote an array of housing types in diversifying our SFD (single-family dwellings) monoculture. Recommended actions include: 

"encourage infill in existing serviced lots with ground-oriented buildings, including duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes and townhouses in existing neighbourhoods
- continue supporting small-lot sizes in the Zoning Bylaw to increase densification of existing and future lots
- partner with non-profits and advocate for funding support for local non-market housing initiatives
- facilitate workshops for homeowners and builders on how to develop secondary suites
- enhance rental supply through density bonusing, DCC discounts & reduced parking requirements
- consider using District of Sooke land for housing 
- incentivize construction of smaller-size units and compact developments
- prepare an affordable housing contribution policy
- review of the Housing Reserve Fund (2022 total: $199,912) and the Community Amenity Contribution Policy
- establish minimum requirements for outdoor amenity space and a minimum number of family units
- incentivize accessible, barrier-free housing and universal design standards."  


The pending OCP states (pg. 30) that our growing population will require 1,813 additional residential units by 2030 + an additional 1,567 by 2040 + another 1,658 by 2050. Total: 5,038 within a quarter century atop our current 6,431 units. (If, indeed, this and future councils balance all other factors -- notably the realities of our increasingly congested two-lane highway -- in accepting projected population increases and inviting this volume of new construction.)

If we're to grow smartly, and without further sprawl, as detailed in the current OCP and recommended in the next, then   new market-rate, social and affordable/attainable housing must be rooted primarily in the town centre and town-centre transitional zones (upwards in height, not outwards at single-storey level). Rather than a 15-minute walkability zone, the OCP Background Research Report (2020) discussion of the Sooke "walkshed" (pp. 50-71) notes that "studies have shown that people are much less likely to choose to walk as a mode of travel beyond a 5-10 minute walk, which is roughly 400-800 meters." Hence the compact density requirements for bona fide Sooke Smart Growth. 

"Gentle density," meanwhile, would radiate out into other parts of the car (and ideally BC Transit)-reliant community growth area as multi-family triplexes and other missing middle housing infill housing types pop up and enhance existing neighbourhood character. 
 
Structure of what follows: 
i) Current BC housing issues in brief (Jen Ford, UBCM) 
ii) Foundational documents re: human and housing rights (UN)
iii) CMHC definitions (affordable, attainable, core-housing needs)
iv) Housing solutions (missing middle, New Urbanism, Small Housing BC)
v) Government of Canada - National Housing Strategy 
vi) Province of BC - Homes for BC 
vii) Provincial non-profit housing providers
viii) Capital Regional District Housing Corporation
ix) District of Sooke 
x) Addressing homelessness 


Housing Issues In Brief 
UBCM President Jen Ford summed up the main issues succinctly in a recent Vancouver Sun opinion piece: 

"While there may be a wide range of opinions on potential policy responses, here is what we can agree on: 
* 
There is an affordability crisis that is disproportionately impacting younger people, urban Indigenous peoples, and those in lower income brackets;
* There is a growing homelessness challenge, inextricably linked with addiction and mental health, that is present in communities throughout the province, not just the largest cities;
* Many households are under stress managing the costs of mortgages or soaring rents; and
* Housing costs are a significant barrier to entry for new Canadians and out-of-province migration." '

(Canada's net population growth in 2022 was 1.05 million people vs. 220k housing starts last year)
  

Foundational Documents: Human Rights and the Right to Housing 
- Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations, 1948) 
- United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (2015) + infographic
- UN Economic and Social Council resolution: Affordable housing and social protection systems for all to address homelessness (2020) 

- Global homelessness statistics: "The last time a global survey was attempted – by the United Nations in 2005 – an estimated 100 million people were homeless worldwide. As many as 1.6 billion people lacked adequate housing (Habitat, 2015). In 2021, the World Economic Forum reported that 150 million people were homeless worldwide."
​
Definitions 
* Affordable housing 
"In Canada, housing is considered “affordable” if it costs less than 30% of a household’s before-tax income." (Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation) 

* Attainable housing
1. "Attainable housing refers to housing that is Adequate in condition (no major repairs needed), Appropriate in size (bedrooms appropriate for household), Affordable (costing less than 30% of before-tax income), Accessible to Services (located in areas where common services are available), and Available (a range of housing types)." 

2. "
Housing that is affordable to people earning around the Area Median Income (AMI). Households living in attainable housing and earning between 80% and 120% of the AMI should not need to spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs." 

"What Does 'Affordable' Housing Even Mean Anymore? - The Tyee (July 8, 2022) 
"What Do We Mean By 'Affordable' Housing? - The Tyee (Aug. 7, 2017) 

* Core Housing Need 
"A household is said to be in 'core housing need' if its housing falls below at least one of the adequacy, affordability or suitability standards and it would have to spend 30% or more of its total before-tax income to pay the median rent of alternative local housing that is acceptable (meets all three housing standards)." ~ Statistics Canada 

"In 2021, one in 10 Canadian households were in core housing need.
In Canada, the core housing need rate in 2021 was 10.1%, and it fell 2.6 percentage points from 12.7% in 2016.

In British Columbia, the core housing need rate in 2021 was 13.4%, and it fell 1.5 percentage points from 14.9% in 2016."

- Core Housing Need of Private Household 
"Housing indicator thresholds are defined as follows:
* Adequate housing is reported by their residents as not requiring any major repairs.
* Affordable housing has shelter costs equal to less than 30% of total before-tax household income.
* Suitable housing has enough bedrooms for the size and composition of resident households according to the National Occupancy Standard, conceived by the CMHC and provincial and territorial representatives."

*
Core Housing Need By The Numbers (CMHC historical trends) 
* Understanding Core Housing Need (CMHC) 



New Thinking: Gentle Density, Smaller Footprints, More Affordability 
Small Housing BC 
- Gentle Density Policy Solutions for British Columbia (January 2023) 
1. Enable strata-title accessory units (i.e., houseplexes) 
​2. Development a province-wide Gentle Housing Density (GHD) mechanism
3. Utilize the PatH (Permanently Attainable Home Ownership model 

​- Toolkit: Innovations in Small-Scale Living from North America 
- Gentle Density Network 
- Permanently Affordable Homeownership Feasibility Study 

"Small Housing BC defines small housing as just enough space to live. Depending on the size of the household, this can be anything between 200 and 1500 square feet; it’s small-scale, ground-oriented housing that is either detached or attached, and well suited to existing single-family neighbourhoods.  Small housing includes:
  • Small lot homes
  • House-plexes
  • Grow homes
  • Cottage housing
  • Co-housing
  • Secondary suites (units within the principal home such as a basement)
  • Laneway housing (detached accessory dwelling units)
  • Suites in duplexes
  • Lock-off suites
  • Micro-suites
  • Tiny homes
  • Collective housing"

- BC Housing: Tiny Homes – An Alternative to Conventional Housing (2021) 
- Tiny House Movement 
- Affordable Living is Possible on Vancouver Island (Times Colonist, Jan. 2, 2023 commentary by Sooke's Lorrie Beauchamp)

- The 2022 average single-family dwelling in British Columbia is approx. 2200 square feet
- "In 1975, the average size of a Canadian house was 1,050 square feet. Fast forward to 2010 and new homes being built almost doubled to an average of 1,950 sq feet. This increase in house size is accompanied by a decrease in the average number of people living in a household. In 1971, it was 3.5; by 2006, that number fell by a full person to 2.5." ~ Globe & Mail, 2012
- Home Grown: 67 Years of US and Canadian House-Size Data 
- 460 Best Minimalist Home Designs (Pinterest gallery) 
- Small Is Beautiful - E.F. Schumacher + Guardian article

Smart Density Toronto 
- Webinar Library 

Missing Middle 
"Missing Middle Housing” was coined in 2010 to define a range of multi-unit or clustered housing types—compatible in scale with detached single-family homes—that help meet the growing demand for walkable urban living. The housing types provide include duplexes, fourplexes, cottage courts, and multiplexes." 

- CMHC: The Missing Middle Housing Delivery Solutions Lab (2021) 
- Canadian Urban Institute: What Is The Missing Middle? (Toronto, 2018)
- Opticos Design: "Top-Five Missing Middle Mistakes" 
- "Why Missing Middle Housing Is An Emerging Trend in Multi-Family Development" 
- "Citizen Developers Ready to Build Canada's Missing Middle" (Globe & Mail, March 17, 2023) 

City of Victoria 
- Missing Middle Initiative 
-  Missing Middle Legislation (in effect as of March 12, 2023)
-  Missing Middle By The Numbers + What's Going On? (Focus on Victoria)
- "Why Does 'Missing Middle' Housing Make People So Angry?" - Times Colonist, Jan. 15, 2023 
- Victoria Finds The Missing Middle (Capital Daily, Jan. 27, 2023)

- Squamish - The Missing Middle
​- Eugene, Oregon - Missing Middle Handbook PDF 

New Urbanism 
New Urbanism is a planning and development approach based on the principles (Jane Jacobs and others) of how cities and towns had been built for the last several centuries: walkable blocks and streets, housing and shopping in close proximity, and accessible public spaces. In other words: New Urbanism focuses on human-scaled urban design.
- Congress for the New Urbanism
- Lexicon of the New Urbanism 
- Building Great Places 
- Project Database 

- :15 City - 15-minute walkable communities 
- Forget the Conspiracies, 15-Minute Cities Will Free Us To Improve Our Mental Health & Wellbeing - The Conversation (March 11, 2023)
- 15-Minute Cities Explainer (Deloitte Global) 
​- Birth of A Conspiracy Theory (CTV) 

- "How Rent To Own Works in BC" (Pemberton Holmes) 
- "Canada is buying into the rent-to-own concept" (CBC, 2020) 
- Federal Liberal 2020 election promise: "A New Rent-to-Own Program"
- Rent To Own Explainer 
- Explainer #2 (Fairstone Law Canada) 

- Renewable Cities/SFU - Hidden Housing Solutions In Single-Famlly Neighbourhoods (2020)


Policy and practice in Canada 
Orders of Government
Backgrounders: 
- "Housing A Nation: The Evolution of Canadian Housing Policy" (UBC Centre for Human Settlements, 1992) 
- Housing and Housing Policy (The Canadian Encyclopedia) 
- Canadian Housing Policy In Perspective (John Bacher, 1986)

- The Municipal Role In Housing (2022, part of the Who Does What series published by the University of Toronto, Munk School of Global Affairs & the Institute on Municipal, Finance & Governance)

Canada
- Canada National Housing Strategy Act (2019) + Progress on the NHS (Government of Canada) 
- Canada's National Housing Strategy + full report + at a glance summary + infographic

- A Primer on Housing Rights in Canada (Parliament of Canada) 
- The Victoria Declaration: A Statement on Governance in Housing & Support Services (Renee Beausoleil, Matthew Wildcat and the UVic Indigenous Law Research Unit, 2020)

- Right to Housing Legislation in Canada
- Assessing Canada’s National Housing Strategy (The National Right to Housing Network)

- Federal government Housing Website 
- Budget 2022: Making Housing More Affordable 
- "Making Housing More Affordable For Canadians" (Budget 2022 statement from the Prime Minister) 

- Multi-Lateral Housing Partnership Framework (federal/provincial agreement, 2018) 
- Agreement with British Columbia (2018) + Addendum (2020) 

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
- Aspiration: "By 2030, everyone in Canada has a home that they can afford and meets their needs." 

-  Corporate Plan: 2022-26 + summary ... 5.8 million homes to be built by 2030
-  Annual Report 2021
- Canada's Housing Supply Shortage: Restoring Affordability by 2030 (June, 2022) + PDF 

​-  "Understanding Canada's Housing Supply Shortages" (June 23, 2022) 
"We project that if current rates of new construction continue, the housing stock will increase by 2.3 million units between 2021 and 2030, reaching close to 19 million housing units by 2030. To restore affordability, we project Canada will need an additional 3.5 million units. That means that the housing stock would need to climb to over 22 million housing units by 2030 to achieve affordability for everyone living in Canada ...Two-thirds of this housing supply gap is found in Ontario and British Columbia, as these provinces have faced large declines in affordability in recent years. Additional supply would also be required in Quebec, as affordability in the province has declined markedly over the last few years." 

Launching June, 2023: CMHC Housing Accelerator Fund  + Pre-Application Reference Guide
"The Housing Accelerator Fund provides $4 billion in incentive funding to local governments encouraging initiatives aimed at increasing housing supply. It's goal is to create 100,000 net new housing units over the next five years.It also supports the development of complete, low-carbon and climate-resilient communities that are affordable, inclusive, equitable and diverse." 

Miscellaneous: 
- CBC: How Canada Plans to Jumpstart Housing (Dec. 2021) 
- Scotiabank analysis of the Canadian housing market: "Are We 100,000 or nearly 2 million units short?" (May 2021) 
- The Tyee: Housing article archive 
- Bank of Montreal $12b Affordable Housing Initiative
- Policy Note: "What Happened to Canada's National Housing Strategy" (March, 2022) 
- "Canada's National Housing Strategy Needs A Reset" - The Tyee (March, 2023) 

Province of BC 
Ministry of Housing 

Honourable Ravi Kahlon, MLA North Delta 
- Mandate letter (Nov. 7, 2022)
​- Service Plan 2023-25
- Ministry of Housing News Releases 


Homes For BC: A 30-Point Plan For Housing Affordability in British Columbia (2018)
"It will take years of sustained action to bring housing affordability home. We are acting immediately to stabilize demand by introducing a new speculation tax, increasing and expanding the foreign buyers tax and closing legal loopholes abused by speculators. And we’re working hard to build the right supply. We’re making the biggest investment in housing in our province’s history. Thousands of affordable homes are in development today, with tens of thousands more to come." - Minister of Municipal Affairs & Housing Selina Robinson 

​- Progress on Homes For BC (2022 update; 36,381 homes completed or underway as of Sept. 30 last year) 

​- Planning For Housing (2004 BC Liberal overview of local government initiatives) 

- Opening Doors: Final Report of the Canada-British Columbia Expert Panel on the Future of Housing Supply and Affordability (June, 2021)

- UBCM Housing Policy page (links to submissions and reports since 2017)
- A Home For Everyone: A Housing Strategy for British Columbians (UBCM, Jan. 2018)
- Analysis of MLA David Eby's Housing Plan (UBCM, Sept. 2022) 
​
- Province of BC Housing Needs Report Regulation (2019)

- Bill 43 - Housing Supply Act (First Reading: Nov. 21, 2022)
- Legislative debate - early afternoon + later afternoon (Second Reading: Nov. 22, 2022) 

"The Minister may, by order, establish housing targets for a specified municipality in relation to housing supply, including the availability and affordability of housing." (Clause 2.1) 


Part 1: Definitions
Part 2: Housing target order
Part 3: Housing target progress report
Part 4: Compliance


​- Minister of Housing Murray Rankin (Hansard, Nov. 22, 2022) 
"This bill well help address the housing crisis by allowing the province to take a leadership role in ensuring municipalities are creating a regulatory environment that supports the creation of new housing supply that meets the needs of British Columbians. 

First, it enables the minister to receive and review housing needs reports produced by municipalities together with other information related to supply and demand for housing to ensure municipalities are accurately forecasting and planning for current and future housing needs.


Second, it gives the province the authority to work with specified municipalities to develop housing targets that reflect housing need, set timelines to achieve those targets and create performance metrics to measure progress.

​Third, it allows the province to review the progress of municipalities toward meeting housing targets and ensuring that municipalities are creating conditions to facilitate new housing development.

Last, if a municipality is not making progress toward its housing target, the province may take further progressive compliance actions, including the appointment of an adviser or advisers to review a municipality’s planning and development processes and practices and to report back to the minister.

Actions may also include the minister issuing a directive for a municipality to enact or amend a bylaw or issue or refuse to issue a permit. Finally, the highest level of compliance action: the province directly enacting or amending a bylaw or issuing or refusing to issue a permit by order-in-council."


- Green Party of BC leader Sonia Fursteneau 
"I think it’s really important to recognize that we just had our local elections. A lot of people that ran in those elections would have run on a particular platform. And that platform, in some areas of this province, might have been about limiting density or protecting green space or all kinds of things related to housing or related to the nature of their community. I would expect and anticipate that there’s some anxiety now about this relationship between local governments, municipalities and the province, in light of this bill, around the ability for people who have run on a particular platform to be able to deliver what they promised in their election.But this isn’t my main critique of this legislation. My main critique is that this change overlooks the key issue that is driving the housing crisis in our province, and that’s the fact that housing is treated as an investment, a commodity, and not a human right. To address the crisis that we’re in, the depth of the crisis that we are in, it is true that we absolutely need more housing. We need more supply. But it is the type of housing that counts."

- Liberal Party of BC's Bruce Banman, MLA Abbotsford South
"I think it is worthy within this House for these eight to ten cities — those lucky ones that are going to get the dart thrown at the board or however they’re going to come about doing this — to have an idea as to what that actually means. They must include performance indicators. Well, what’s that? This government sure as heck doesn’t like using performance indicators on themselves, yet they’re now going to ram that down the throats of cities that they’re going to have to come up with some kind of performance indicators. We don’t even have the chance to figure out what they are." 

- "New Legislation Seeks to Expand Housing Supply in BC" - Blake, Cassels & Graydon explainer
- "David Eby's
 housing law mostly stick with slice of carrot for municipalities" (Vaughn Palmer, Nov. 23, 2022)

- "If You Don't Build It, They Will Come" (Stuart MacDonald Stewart Barristers & Solicitors analysis) 
"
Bureaucratic euphemisms aside, Bill 43 sets up a potential showdown between municipal councils and the Province over the very shape and character of communities. No matter the party holding power in Victoria on any given day, the implications of Bill 43 for municipalities are unclear, and much detail about the new regime remains unknown at this time ... Bill 43 will have to make its way through the legislative process, and could possibly see changes before it becomes law. The critical event will be when the Province issues the regulations. Among other things, the regulations should reveal when the legislation will actually come into force, whether the Province intends to provide clarity on unanswered questions in the legislation, such as the scope of record disclosure an adviser may require, and most fundamentally, who the first “specified” municipalities will be." 

- UBCM Analysis of Bill 43 ... "Elements that require further definition include:
  • How will housing targets be defined? 
  • How will the targets reflect the long (often multi-year) time-frame for delivery of housing following local government approvals?
  • Will the Minister hold a local government to a target if applications are refused because developers are not prepared to provide the amenities/services necessary for the development?
  • How will targets relate to current Official Community Plans, regional planning and growth management plans, including efforts to limit urban sprawl and address climate adaptation and mitigation?"

- Insights into BC government approaches to housing over the decades: Opinion: Another Groundhog Day in BC for Housing Affordability (Urbanized, Jan. 18, 2023)

- BC Budget 2023 backgrounder: Investing In Affordable and Attainable Housing
- Understanding the Historic Investment in Housing Affordability in BC's 2023 Budget (BC Non-Profit Housing Association, March 2023) 
- BC Invests $4.2 billion in housing as part of refreshed housing plan (Business In Vancouver, Feb. 28, 2023)

Related Media Clips
- BC Is the most unaffordable province in Canada for housing, Census shows (CBC, Sept. 2022)
- New Premier Delivers Action to Expand Housing Supply Within First Days (press release, Nov. 21, 2022)
- Premier Proposes Giving Cities Building Targets (CBC, Nov. 21, 2022)
- BC to launch new housing ministry (CTV, Nov. 21, 2022)  
- Here's How Eby Plans to Tackle the Affordable Housing Crisis (CTV, Nov. 22, 2022)

- BC Ministry of Housing Lays Out 5 Major Performance Targets (Storeys Real Estate Newsletter, March 2023)

- Housing Crisis As Seen By One of Canada's Largest Housing Developers (Vancouver Sun, Douglas Todd, 03/09/23)
- In BC, Housing Is Like A Religion (Douglas Todd, 2022) 
- Five Factors Contorting BC House Prices This Spring (Douglas Todd, 2023)


BC Housing 
"
BC Housing develops, manages and administers a wide range of subsidized housing options across the province. We also license residential builders, administer owner builder authorizations and carry out research and education that benefits the residential construction industry, consumers and the affordable housing sector." 

[Similar provincial agencies exist in Saskatchewan (Saskatchewan Housing Corporation), Nova Scotia (Housing Nova Scotia), and Manitoba (Manitoba Housing). In other parts of the country, large urban centres have their own municipal social housing agencies, among them Toronto (Toronto Community Housing Corporation), Montreal (Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal) and Calgary (Calgary Housing Company).]

- BC Housing home page
​- Established under the BC Ministry of Land, Parks and Housing Act 
- Overseen by the BC Housing Management Commission 
​- Mandate letter (2021) 
- Service Plan 2023-25

- Building BC Programs 
i) Homes For BC
ii) Rapid Response to Homelessness
iii) Community Building Fund
iv) Indigenous Housing Fund 
v) Supportive Housing Fund
vi) Women's Transition Housing Fund 

- Housing Hub: Partnering with BC Housing 
- Design Guidelines and Construction Standards 
- Updated project list province-wide 
- Research library  
- BC's New Homes Registry Page (month-by-month housing starts dating back to 2016) + Feb. 2023 report 
- Facts and Stats 

- Subsidized housing (how to apply) 

- Buying A Home In BC: A Consumer Protection Guide 
- A Scan of Leading Practices In Affordable Housing (2017)
- Housing Registry: Zone 8 - Affordable Housing Projects on Southern Vancouver Island 
​
- CleanBC Social Housing Incentives (retrofits, studies, implementation plans)
- BC Housing Community Garden Fund ($3k in seed money) 

- Five Things to Know About BC's Housing Plan (The Tyee, March 7, 2023)

- What Happened to the 114,000 New Affordable Homes Promised in BC (Policy Note, March, 2022)
"
Towards the 114,000 target, over 14,300 units are complete or in some stage of development under the various granting programs while another 9,200 are from loan programs. Total completed units from both streams amount to about 11,000 units. Thus, less than 10% of the 114,000 unit target has been completed as of April 2021, rising to 22% if we count units in progress. A large share is merely “initiated” rather than under construction and all categories should show progress almost a year later." 

Residential Tenancy Branch 
- FAQs
- 2023 rent increases maximum of 2%
- Rent Increase Calculator

- BC Rent Bank + FAQ 
- Greater Victoria Rent Bank - Community Social Planning Council 
- Rent Bank program launch announcement (Feb. 16, 2021)

"Rent banks provide:
  • financial assistance to tenants who are unable to pay rent or essential utilities due to an unexpected short-term crisis;
  • support for tenants who are unable to pay damage deposit or first month's rent;
  • critical supports that can lead to more stabilized and sustainable housing.
Critical supports include:
  • advocating on behalf of individuals to landlord/tenancy boards, utilities corporations, etc.;
  • mediating and guiding conversations between individual tenants and their landlords and others;
  • referrals to other agencies for access to food, clothing, transportation support, and more;
  • helping tenants access government subsidies, grants programs and/or benefits for which they may be eligible."


 Provincial Non-Profit Societies & Associations 

British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association (BCNPHA) 

- Annual Reports 
- HousingU Online Education 
- CMHC Housing Solutions: Funding & Financing Opportunities (2021 slide deck) 

Co-op Housing Federation of BC 
"CHF BC has helped 136 co-ops develop and implement plans, supporting them with engineering studies, viability analyses and long-term financial forecasts. In 2022, 35 co-ops started or completed planning activities with CHF BC’s help, nine of them returning to the program for a second round of collaboration. In addition to traditional financing, the program assisted co-ops with loan and funding program applications with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM). Both offer grants and financing for energy-efficient projects. To date, CHF BC has helped co-ops secure almost $110M in borrowing to fund their projects."
- FAQs
- 2022 In Review 
- Online resources (meeting tools, template policies)
- Find a BC cooperative map 

Greater Victoria Housing Society 
"Founded in 1956, the Greater Victoria Housing Society is a non-profit charitable organization dedicated to providing affordable rental housing for low-to-moderate income families, seniors, working singles, and adults with diverse abilities who live independently."  
- 1300 tenants living in 933 homes in 17 properties (soon to include Sooke's Talc Place).
- No vacancies as of March, 2023.  
- 
2021 Annual Report 

M'akola Housing Society 
"​M’akola is a leader in providing appropriate and affordable homes and assisted living, primarily for British Columbia’s Indigenous communities, including First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and urban Indigenous people."
​- Vancouver Island properties 


The Vancouver Island Housing Leadership Network 
Comprised of 14 organizations including BC Community Renewal Society of the United Church of Canada, Dawson Heights Housing, Gorge View Society, Greater Victoria Housing Society, Island Community Mental Health, Legion Manor Victoria, M’akola Housing Society, Mount Douglas Seniors Housing, Nanaimo Affordable Housing Society, Our Place Society, Pacifica Housing, The Cridge Centre for the Family, Threshold Housing Society and Victoria Cool Aid Society.

Canadian Rental Housing Providers Coalition

​

Capital Regional District
Capital Region Housing Corporation 
​
"
The Capital Region Housing Corporation (CRHC) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the CRD. Our mandate is to develop and manage affordable housing to meet the needs of people living within the capital region. The primary activities of the CRHC are the day-to-day management of housing, providing property management services, and providing services to residents who live in 49 housing complexes across seven municipalities ... As leaders in non-profit housing in the capital region, the CRHC delivers affordable, attractive, inclusive, sustainable housing for low-income households." 

​- Minutes and Agendas 
- Regional Housing Affordability Strategy (2018)
- Regional Housing Affordability Strategy Status Report (2022) 
- 2021 Annual Report 

Hospitals and Housing Committee
​- Terms of Reference: "The mandate of the Committee includes providing advice or making recommendations, or both, regarding the following region-wide functions: i) Land Banking and Housing; ii) Community health planning, regulations and enforcement; iii) Implementation of various housing affordability models, the potential formation of strategic partnerships and the creation of alternative corporate entities; iv) Options for the procurement of health care facilities and housing developments; and v) Real estate matters relating to health care facilities and housing." 
- Minutes and Agendas 

Regional Housing First Program 
"The RHFP is an equal partnership agreement between the CRD, the Government of BC through BC Housing, and the Government of Canada through CMHC. The equal partnership has seen a direct investment of $120m to create up to 2,000 units of affordable housing as part of the $600 million program, including up to 400 units renting at the provincial income assistance rate to address the needs of people experiencing homelessness on southern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.

The RHFP currently includes 10 projects, which have created, or are in the process of creating, 1,055 units of affordable housing in six municipalities from Sooke to Salt Spring Island. In 2021, the CRHC opened Hockley House delivering 120 units of mixed-market housing in downtown Langford bringing the total number of completed units under the RHFP to 475." 

District of Sooke 
District of Sooke Housing website page 

Sooke's first Housing Needs Report (2019)
DOS Affordable Housing Strategy (2007)

Sooke Affordable Housing Committee (2018-19) + Terms of Reference
Resolutions arising from its final meeting (Minutes, Nov. 18, 2019) 
1. Support the prioritization of strategies listed in the Housing Action Plan, except for the following:
- The first 4 bullet points under 10.4.2 to be reprioritized from “medium priority” to “high priority”:
o Continue to allow higher housing densities through secondary suites.
o Facilitate the development of duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes and wood frame apartment buildings, which are more affordable compared to other dwelling types

o Enhance the supply of manufactured homes, i.e.the development of MHP zoned lands which contains only 3 vacant parcels in the community. This would be the most efficient short-term way of enhancing the affordable housing supply in the community.
o Consider a land bank (i.e.a large body of land held by a public or private organization for future development or disposal)


2. Support the inclusion of a housing component on Lot A.

3. Support housing developments that include aspects of health and social wellbeing, environmental sustainability and community connectedness.

* Details on Sooke's Land Use & Development committees over the last decade in this blog entry of mine 



T’Sou-ke Indigenous Housing Solutions Lab (2020/22) 
"Project explores the connections between design, policy and community" - Times Colonist 
Overview + Discovering Home (videos) 

Hope Centre Transitional and Emergency Shelter with wrap-around support services

Regional Housing First + Other Sooke Housing Projects
- BC Housing - New Homes Under Construction in Sooke

- Charters: $21m project featuring 75 units,  spring 2023 occupancy. Accessible (8 units), Provincial Assistance (15), Affordable (23), Near-Market (37).  + Sooke's first modular affordable housing

- Drennan and Sooke Rd.: $46m project featuring 150 units, late 2023/early 2024 occupancy. Accessible (20 units), Provincial Assistance (34), Affordable (53), Near-Market (83).

- Knox Centre: $11m, 42-unit affordable housing complex at Church and Wadams Way. Opened April, 2019. 

- Proposed: Sooke Gathering Place featuring 76 units of affordable seniors rental housing atop the multi-generational community space in the northeast quadrant of Lot A. The third stream of funding under BC Housing's Community Building Fund opens late 2023. 

- Frances Gardens Co-operative Housing: 36 unit duplex-style homes on Throup Road

- Lannon Creek Park 

- Harbourside Cohousing 
- West Wind Harbour Cohousing 
- Both are members of the Canadian Cohousing Network and two of 27 co-housing projects in BC 
- What Is Cohousing? + Canadian Senior Cohousing Society

​
Sooke Housing Needs Report 
Effective April 2019, the Province of BC amended the Local Government Act (Division 22) to require that municipalities produce Housing Needs Reports every five years.  Sooke published its first such report in October, 2019.  It detailed Sooke's community context, housing supply, housing market characteristics, land utilization, current gaps in the housing supply, housing needs projections and best practices.  Related: CRD/Juan de Fuca Electoral Area Housing Needs Report (2020)

"Overall, Sooke is expected to display an additional net housing need for 2,014 owner-occupied and 439 renter-occupied housing units during the period 2016-2031."  

Findings and Focus Areas
- Address market-rate housing needs for all age cohorts
- Address non-market housing needs
- Enhance supply of rental housing
- Enhance housing affordability
- Facilitate development on vacant lands
- Prepare for growth in aged 65+ population 


High Priorities
Strategy 1:
- Enhance density on properties that are already serviced with municipal water and sewer lines, particularly in existing urban properties.
- Ensure adequate accessibility in housing for seniors 

Strategy 2:
- Enhance the supply of entry-level housing for young adults/professionals and senior-appropriate housing; 
- Work with other levels of government, community agencies, and the development community to address housing affordability issues in terms of seniors housing and below market-rate rental housing. 

Strategy 3:
- Facilitate rental housing supply
- Review existing Housing Reserve Fund (low) 


Strategy 4: 
- Facilitate more discussion between private non-profits, developers, and landowners concerning new affordable housing developments. 
- Promote the sustainable development of more affordable housing units


Medium Priorities
- 10.1. Enhance supply of entry-level housing for young adults/professionals and "senior-appropriate" (universal access, one storey or elevator-served housing)
- 10.2. Work with partners (government, community agencies, developers) to address housing affordability issues for those on fixed incomes (seniors, disabled, unemployed, minimum wage earners) with universal-access housing and below-market rental options. 
- 10.2.2   "Undertake research and education to support innovation." 
- 10.4.2   "Promote the sustainble development of more affordable housing units." 
- 10.4.3   Review existing Housing Reserve Fund 
 
Survey Results (approx. 275 replies)
~ homes too expensive
~ lack of sufficient housing options for people with unique needs - single people, elders, families
~ 55% of Sooke residents pay between $1k and $3k per month (excluding utilities)
~ 11.11% have paid off mortgage 
~ 26% of Sooke residents pay more than 45 percent of household income on rent; 26% from 30 to 45%
~ I can't afford to live anywhere else: 44.5% 
~ I prefer my neighbourhood: 42% 
~ low household income: 24%


District of Sooke Housing Statistics 
(Statistics Canada Census 2021 numbers from the 
District's Community Data Portal) 

​​Households
Average household size: 2.4 people
Total dwellings: 6,130
Single Family Homes: 3,820
Rentals: 1,160
Mobile homes: 355 

Owners: 4,925
Renters: 1,205

Average single-family home value: $650k (2020)

Sooke single-family home sales value 
(annual Victoria Real Estate Board summaries)
1995: $180,892
​
2003: $237,507
2009: $424,146
2010: $440,203
2015: $420,266
2018: $583,251
2020: $664,681
2021: $862,762

Greater Victoria Historical Price-Selling Graph, 1980-2021
Greater Victoria Single Family Home Sales Data, 1980-2021

Private Dwellings By Date Constructed
1960 or before ~ 440
1961 to 1980 ~ 1,485
1981 to 1990 ~ 745
1991 to 2000 ~ 740
2001 to 2005 ~ 430
2006 to 2010 ~ 740
2011 to 2015 ~ 710
2016 to 2021 ~ 840

Spending less than 30% of income on shelter costs ~ 4,780
Spending 30% or more of income on shelter costs ~ 1,325

Home owners spending more than 30% of income on shelter costs - 16.1%
Renters spending more than 30% of income on shelter costs - 44.2%

"Acceptable" housing in Sooke - 4,475 homes
Households in core need - 680
Not in core need - 5,210


Addressing Homelessness 
- Government of Canada: Reaching Home: Canada's Homelessness Strategy + backgrounder 
- Capital Regional District Reaching Home program + FAQ

- An Affordable Housing Plan for British Columbia (BC Rental Housing Coalition, 2015) 
- Medicine Hat, Alta. Plan to End Homelessness (2009) + year nine progress report

BC Housing: Community Acceptance of Non-Market Housing Toolkit (2019)
* Guide One: Building Partnerships with Local Governments
* Guide Two: Design Considerations to Gain Community Acceptance
* Guide Three: Gaining and Maintaining Community Acceptance
* Guide Four: Sample Materials for Non-Market Housing Suppliers 
* Guide Five: Additional Resources  
 
- BC Housing: Community Benefits of Supportive Housing (Infographic) 
- Province of BC Income Assistance Rate Table (updated Oct. 2021) + Support & Shelter page 

- The Roadmap for the Prevention of Youth Homelessness (Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, 2019) 
- Sooke School District #62 Healthy Schools, Healthy People infographic on youth issues (2019) 

- Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness Stronger Together Building Community Roundtable (2018)
- Core Service Gaps in Indigenous Wellness (Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness) 
- Gender Equality Project (Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness)
 
- BC Housing: Emergency Shelter Program Framework (2018) 

 - The Pan-Canadian Women’s Housing and Homelessness Survey (Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, 2021) 
- Ending Working Poverty in Canada: How To Get It Done (Vibrant Communities/Tamarack Institute, 2021) 
 - Situation Tables: A Model for Community Safety and Well-Being in British Columbia (BC Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General) 
- Yes, In My Backyard: Welcoming Inclusion, Upholding Human Rights (Pivot Legal Society, 2020) 
- COVID 19: The Beginning of the End of Homelessness (City of Victoria, 2021)

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Budget 2023 Starter

3/15/2023

0 Comments

 
Outcome: On the first pass yesterday morning, we and staff (the chess masters thinking many moves ahead of necessity) reduced the potential hike to "6.99% or less" -- which is congruent with the cost-of-living increase this last year and amounts to just under $100 per average assessed Sooke residential property. More discussion to follow when the formal Five-Year Financial Plan is presented to us on April 10. You're welcome to join council and staff at a budget open house tentatively scheduled for the Muni Hall on Tues. April 18, more details to follow. 

Budget deliberations are here again, so I'm springing forward with a recap of  the initial round of pre-budget discussions held over the last three weeks and a preview of tomorrow and next Tuesday's special council meetings. Structure here: Budget 2023 Overview; Sooke Fire; Sooke RCMP; Climate Action; New Service Agreements; Growing Communities Fund; Tax Hikes Elsewhere.

Bottom line: The Five Year Plan's first look features a 9.34% tax increase in 2023, or $131 for the average BC Assessment-calibrated Sooke residential property ($827,746 as of July 1, 2022).

Staff and council will whittle what it can from this staring point in the weeks ahead in seeking a reasonable, realistic number that keeps existing services intact, factors in some new initiatives and yet doesn't hit folks too aggressively where it hurts at a time when so many are dealing with the rising cost of everything (i.e., 7% year-to-year jump in the Consumer Price Index). We'll discover on Tuesday whether Sooke's recent receipt of $5.9 million from BC's Growing Communities Fund can reduce the figure (more on this unexpected windfall below.) 

Municipalities across BC and Canada are struggling with similar-but-uniquely-their-own dilemmas in this inflationary cycle. [Scroll to the end of this post for a brief overview; tax increases in BC so far this year are ranging upwards from 5% (Central Saanich, Sidney) to 17% (Lake Country) at the upper end.] 

Finance Director/Deputy CAO Raechel Gray is building significant new staffing requests from Sooke RCMP and Sooke Fire Services into the five-year plan starting with requested new positions for each this year. Two other needed jobs -- a Wastewater Engineering Tech and an Emergency Program Assistant -- are also on the books this year.

About 60% of the tax hike is due to "non-discretionary expense increases in wages, contracts and insurance premiums," reads the agenda. These are all locked in through existing agreements with the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 374, the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 4841 and exempt management employees. Also confirmed this year are community service agreements with the Sooke Food Bank, Sooke Community Association, Sooke Chamber of Commerce, Sooke Family Resource Society and others.

Unstated: No messing with these fixed numbers without consequences, please. 

The remaining 4.15% of the proposed increase is "discretionary," and so let the strategic trimming begin. Very likely we'll start with the proposed (by staff) council travel budget since it's presented first on the list of negotiable items in the agenda.  I don't believe we've overdone our participation in such incredibly valuable learning/networking/collective voting opportunities as the AVICC and UBCM conferences, but no question we need a better strategy to determine how to divvy up who and how many of us attend the annual round of local government shindigs.

Also up for deliberation are expenses for IT software; staff recruitment (critical given how challenging it is these days for local governments, like many employers, to find qualified applicants); extra funds for the next highway maintenance contract; seed money for Community Economic Development; rainwater infrastructure upgrades; invasive species and snow removal; and contract fees for the firehall mechanic, auxiliary parks workers and fire department relief help during the transition to 24/7 staffing at Fire Hall #1. (As you'll later read if you stick with this eye-glazer, we have three solid years of climate action grants to work with, so that critical work doesn't impact the tax rate.)

In my experience, Ms. Gray and her team have the alchemical skill to crunch figures and lower the provisional number we first see as they manage the rolling Five-Year Plan from one year to the next. Yet there's no doubt Sooke will not be an exception to the cavalcade of BC communities delivering larger increases than usual this year. 

Looking ahead, we've also heard a preliminary staff ask that, starting next year, we approve a 2% tax hike in 2024 and 2025 to ramp up the Capital Assets Reserve Fund -- a necessarily wise and mature municipal action to cover long-term infrastructure costs (i.e., maintenance and replacement of civic essentials - roads, equipment, sewer lines, etc.; read the Asset Management BC provincial framework document for the stitch-in-time logic.)

Dive in to the District's comprehensive budget materials here:
- Let's Talk Sooke: Budget 2023 page where you'll find ... 
- Citizen Budget Survey (conducted fall 2022)  
- Budget Information Explainer (Feb. 2023)
- Five-Year Financial Plan 2022-2026 
- Financial Services website page 
  
Also revisit my earlier budget posts for context on how our tax rate has evolved over the last decade: 
- Budget 2022
- 2020/21
- CRD (2019)
- Budget 2019

FYI Tax hikes over the last decade total 27.39% ... 

2022 ~ 6.09%
2021 ~ 3.31%

2020 ~ 0.00%
2019 ~ 7.18%
2018 ~ 2.79%
2017 ~ 5.58%
2016 ~ 0.85%
2015 ~ 0.00%
2014 ~ 0.02%
2013 ~ 1.59%
2012 ~ 0.00%

Municipal taxes comprise approx. 45% of your annual tax bill. Also to be counted: 
- Provincial School Tax
- Capital Regional District
- BC Transit
- Vancouver Island Regional Library 
- Capital Hospital District
- Municipal Finance Authority 

Community Safety 
The Feb. 21 COW featured presentations and discussion regarding the biggest funding asks for this and the next four years ~ namely the hiring of five additional Sooke RCMP officers and eight new IAFF career firefighters so as to enable bona fide 24/7 on-site professional service from each. 

Sooke currently dedicates 42.3% or xxx of the municipal budget to community safety. Police and fire do a comprehensive job as it is yet both departments must keep pace with accelerated community growth.  Sooke Fire Chief/Director of Community Safety Ted Ruiter and Sooke RCMP's Acting Detachment Commander Kevin Shaw provided persuasive cases for their respective asks (see the video replay for their comments and power-points; RCMP presentation starts here; Sooke Fire here.) 

Increased funding for public safety is supported by all of us on council as a foundational necessity.  Extra dollars in these areas is also generally favored in the latest (fall 2022) Citizen Budget Survey, which captures the view of a small (200 residents) yet still meaningful slice of Sooke public sentiment. (Everyone is invited to fill out these annual surveys, which are well-advertised via roadside bulletin boards and other more traditional means; the participation rate is growing slowly but surely.)  

Sooke Fire Service 
Sooke councils since 2015 have committed to a "full-service-operations level fire department" as defined in the "playbook" (2022 update) issued by the Fire Commissioner’s Office of British Columbia. 

Reaching that status requires (as per the lead recommendation in last year's Fire Department Master Plan prepared by Dave Mitchell & Associates) the staffing and establishment of 24/7 service by IAFF career firefighters operating from Fire Hall #1. The request calls for four platoons of four firefighters each by 2027, a scenario that requires eight new hires at a two-firefighter-per-year schedule.  (With two recent additions, Sooke has a current squad of eight career officers.) 

As it has successfully operated over the years, Sooke Fire will remain a "composite" department supported by valued volunteer firefighters. The introduction of a paid on-call system in 2019 as a best-practice request of the Volunteer Firefighters Association was intended to drive increased recruitment to above 50 members. However the ranks remain at a historically consistent number (approx. 30 volunteers) largely due to the realities potential new members face due to busy modern life and work-styles and the unique challenges of the position. 

The new staffing structure will enable professional firefighters to deliver "adequate response times" (i.e., within 10 minutes) to fire and medical emergencies -- just as they do during their day shifts currently yet with added around-the-clock coverage. Volunteers trained so effectively by Cam Norris-Jones will join them ASAP from their homes across the region when their beepers sound at any unpredictable hour.

Chief Ruiter says it all extremely well in his presentation, so please take the time to review it and learn about minimum standards (Fire Services Act, Emergency Program Act, WorkSafe BC, Sooke's Fire Protection Services Bylaw) as well as the Sooke Emergency Program, inspections and educational outreach (i.e. to schools, businesses and, in future, to seniors via the Older & Wiser program).

How to pay for it all? As Ms. Gray told us, starting salary for an IAFF firefighter under the recently ratified contract is $101k per year. In reducing property tax impacts, existing reserves, wildfire revenue from the province ($148k in 2021), potential new service revenue, transfers from the paid-on call budget, non-market-change revenue (i.e. revenue from new tax portfolios) and District surplus funds will be used in the creation of a Future Fire Cost Reserve Fund. In a worse case scenario, she said a 1 to 2% tax increase per year might be required over the next four years. ​Key point to soften the blow: Chief Ruiter noted again that full-service operations dramatically reduces insurance rates for home and commercial property owners; according to one 2015 report, a property valued at $450k would face a $5489 bill annually without fire service; with service, the rate drops to $1491. 

Sooke RCMP
https://www.jeffbateman.ca/blog/sooke-policing
Similar financial wizardry involving reserve funds, shared revenues and property tax contributions will be required to meet Sooke RCMP's request for five additional officers through 2026. This has been coming for a long time, certainly ever since former Staff Sgt. Steve Wright stated the need at a Sooke Protective Services meeting in March, 2012: "Sooke compared to other municipalities is grossly under poiiced. We don't have enough police officers to go to 24-hour coverage and this is a concern to me."

Wright's successors Jeff McArthur, Brett Sinden and Shaw himself have all consistently said as much. (Shaw told us it's also the wish of our new Detachment Commander, Greg Willcocks, who arrives here from Haida Gwaii's Queen Charlotte detachment this spring.)  This is the first time to my knowledge, however, that the RCMP has delivered a comprehensive public ask of Sooke council for a full-bodied solution to this long-standing matter.  

Staff Sgt. Shaw demonstrated how its time for Sooke to get serious about lowering our "Cop to Pop" ratio from the current one officer per 1,194 residents ~ essential if Sooke RCMP  is to be more effective at recruiting and retaining members currently faced with abnormally heavy workloads, incipient burn out, on-call responsibilities and lack of local career opportunities compared to their colleagues in better staffed communities.  

(The BC average, as you'll read in my blog post, is 1 to  764; the current OCP calls for a 1 officer per 1,000 citizen ratio. In keeping its own ratio low, Langford is considering nine new West Shore RCMP officers in expanding to 70 members. Similar stories are playing out in communities across BC where higher taxes will bring in new officers. The City of Victoria is a rare outlier in bucking the trend.) 

Capturing some of Shaw's key points:
- Lowering crime rates is the objective for forces of all sizes; our rate in Sooke (2021) is an annual 54.1 criminal-code offences per 1,000 population. That is higher than the regional average for communities our size (40.4 offences per 1,000).

- Sooke currently has the second lowest policing cost on the south island, trailed only by North Saanich. Our per-capita policing cost is $144 per year vs. comparables paid by residents in Colwood ($230), View Royal ($183), Sidney ($195) and Langford ($245).  The provincial figure is double what we pay at an average $289 per community.

- As mentioned, we have the lowest officer-to-population ratio on the south island. Closest is View Royal (1 to 1002). Elsewhere: Colwood (1 to 985); Sidney/North Saanich (1 to 953); Langford (1 to 815); Central Saanich (1 to 805). 

- Apart from property crime statistics (which have remained stable since 2011), other areas are trending up over time: criminal code offences, mental health calls, violent offences and "other criminal code." 

- "Sooke RCMP officers carry a significantly above-average criminal case load" compared to other municipal departments ~ 65 criminal case investigations per Sooke officer vs. View Royal (52), Colwood (50), Langford (39), Sidney/North Saanich (32), Central Saanich (20). 

- Overall case files per officer for non-criminal matters -- neighbour disputes, mental health calls, suicidal persons, check-wellbeing files -- are again well above average for Sooke -- 317 per officer vs. Westshore (253), Sidney/North Saanich (245), Central Saanich (176). 

- Approximately 1200 new residents will arrive in Sooke with our latest wave of new development and we're predicted to continue growing at a 2.4% annual clip. 

Said Shaw: "Why this matters, importantly, is our ability to provide the service that we’re contracted to provide. It’s challenging for anybody, particularly for a police officer, to stand up and say we’re not doing a good job. But what I will tell council is that we’re not doing as good a job as we should be doing and what this community expects us to do. We hear that all the time, we acknowledge it and it weighs heavily on us." 

The funding ask: 
- 2 new hires in 2024 ... Cop to Pop lowered - 1 to 1027. "This would allow us to begin the transition to 24-hour policing" 
- 2 more in 2025 ... allowing 4 shifts of 5 police officers and a 1 to 939 ratio. 
- 1 more in 2026 ... 1 to 916 allowing dedicated community policing, traffic enforcement and/or major crimes sections. 

These new hires will help RCMP deliver "proactive enforcement and engagement" as follows:
- Reducing crime by targeting prolific offenders
- Proactive traffic enforcement in the pursuit of increased road safety
- Foot patrols downtown to prevent crime, engage with business owners and the public
- Engagement in the schools speaking with students, teachers and parents 

Critical point: "We have a responsibility to always put the best foot forward and conduct quality investigations, but the volume of our files per officer is beginning to affect the quality of what we do because there is always a pressure to move on to the next file. It’s a real issue ... Complex, serious investigations are exclusively the responsibility of Sooke RCMP – stabbings, serious sexual offences, child offences. These cases are time-consuming, challenging and specialized, best served by a team of dedicated investigators versus being investigated by front-line investigators" as is currently the case. 

Ms. Gray stated that the per-capita cost of these hires would add about $30 per tax bill for policing in Sooke, still the cheapest in the region. Each new officer costs $203k per year (including benefits, gear, car, etc.) Two new officers are already accounted for in earlier Five-Year Plans. Traffic Fine Revenue will continue to flow into the reserve fund. Retro pay for the new RCMP unionized contract has been banked in a reserve fund ($450k). With the last census, we're to be billed by the province for police services at a 90 percent rate (vs. 70% previously) however this may not kick in until next year. It takes almost a year for a new officer to be recruited and the District charged, so the impact won't be felt until 2024. 

​Climate Action
The other item on the Feb.. 21 agenda -- involving no municipal taxes and a relative fraction of the cost and yet taking up nearly two-thirds of the five-hour meeting -- was a public safety matter of another kind: Climate action to be undertaken in the context of 2019's declared climate emergency. (To counter persistent disinformation at the outset: No, Sooke's Climate Action Plan does not seek to ban wood-burning stoves - nor even mentions them - and its ask that council explore banning natural-gas hook-ups in new construction to slash methane pollution is a best-practice suggestion that would require council discussion, public hearing and a new bylaw as per all the processes and rules that keep democracies like ours thriving.) 

Here on the south island, Sooke is served by the CRD Climate Action Service at a 2022 cost of $44,697 (or $6.40 per residential assessment). This service expanded significantly last year with new staff members, programs and increased budget (i.e., the comparative 2021 cost to Sooke was $13,809 or $1.97 per tax bill.)  Notable are the Charge Your Ride and Home Energy Navigator programs open to all Greater Victoria residents. 

The service employs a half-dozen staff members led by manager Nikki Elliott and including Sooke's former short-term climate coordinator Maia Carolsfeld. It delivers a broad range of regional programs for citizens, schools, businesses and member municipal governments as documented on its resource page.  Sooke links up to it officially through a pair of Inter-Municipal Climate Task Forces -- one involving elected representatives (Cllr. St-Pierre from Sooke), the other municipal staff (Communications Coordinator Christina Moog). (A first-ever set of minutes from the task force is published with the CRD Environmental Services Committee agenda of March 29.) 

According to the CRD, the service "develops corporate and community-focused mitigation and adaptation strategies; supports local governments to be climate-neutral by 2030; strives for neutral GHG emissions corporately; and responds to Board priorities and the declared climate emergency."

As a municipality responsible for its own biodiverse 56.9 sq. km. today and in future, we must do our necessarily limited but significant part. The BC Community Energy Association has worked with the UBCM to identify best practices at the municipal level. These include adopting the Low Carbon Resilience strategy, participating in peer-learning networks (in our case with the CRD and the FCM's Partners for Climate Protection program) and hiring dedicated climate action staff. We tick all but the last of these boxes at the moment.

There's all-around agreement that we need a staff member focused on implementing the District's climate policies.  The LCR approach which we adopted in 2021 requires all District staff to keep GHG reduction in mind in their every decision. One individual is also needed to coordinate staff action and keep everyone in tune and on track with climate priorities identified in our various master plans, including last year's Climate Action Plan.

Council's job, as we've been reminded lately, is to develop policy in collaboration with our one and only employee, the Chief Administrative Officer. Among our six strategic priorities in 2018-22 was "demonstrate leadership in climate action," and this is again cited in our evolving new Strat Plan. 

For their part, staff are to handle the "how" of implementing these policies.

The lines inevitably blur on occasion. In this particular case, council was asked by last year's Climate Action Committee (of which I was council's liaison) to consider hiring a full-time Climate Action Coordinator to continue the substantial work undertaken by Ms. Carolsfeld in her nine-month stint with us in 2021/22.  

How to proceed with climate staffing this year will be decided during budget talks -- either with this full-time Climate Action Coordinator or, as staff recommend, a senior employee in the planning department with a mandate to cover a diverse range of responsibilities, climate coordination included. 

The municipal commitment to reduce community carbon emissions -- promised when we signed the BC Climate Action Charter (2008) and embedded in the current (2010) and pending Official Community Plans -- is to be funded through 2025 at least by the province's long-awaited, warmly received Local Government Climate Action Program.  

Announced last summer in alignment with the CleanBC Roadmap to 2030, it promises $135k annually to Sooke for three years provided the District contributes $27k of its own funds each year.  The intention of this province-wide program: "To enable community-specific action to reduce emissions and increase climate resilience; and enable robust reporting to track results and help improve the program over time."  Overall we'll therefore have $162k per year to spend on this annually through 2025. 

Like the Growing Communities fund, the program is unusually flexible and recognizes that every community is at a different stage in its response. Suggestions include creation of a climate plan, implementation of GHG-reducing community programs and/or the hiring of climate staff positions. 

Here in Sooke, our short-term coordinator left behind the Sooke 2030 Climate Action Plan (CAP). It calls for the District and the community to do their respective parts in reducing corporate and community GHG emissions in half by a fast-approaching 2030 -- a target in line with the United Nations and the BC Municipal Climate Leadership Council; it's more ambitious than the 40-45% reduction sought by the federal and BC governments. Given our sorry track record to date, these targets are aspirational yet the CAP is nonetheless a realistic, made-in-Sooke effort to get there delivered in creative fashion by asking everyone to rethink how we move, grow, build, lead and relate. 

Council endorsed it last summer and our new group recognizes that it is a living (read: entirely amendable and primed for multiple versions) document that will evolve year-by-year as the District operationalizes the Low Carbon Resilience strategy.  This approach is intended to measure (literally, via comprehensive carbon accounting) every District and council decision through the LCR co-benefits model -- namely a set of 27 social, environmental and economic factors that help ensure positive and balanced outcomes. (The ACT team at Simon Fraser University continues to refine and enhance a strategy they developed in 2018, and its work will funnel down to Sooke as its available.)

The CAP Master List of Recommended Actions (Appendix H)  tabulates 112 climate-related actions already identified in the District's key documents: OCP, Transportation Master Plan, Parks & Trails Master Plan and the Community Economic Development Strategy and Action Plan.  A set of 25 Immediate Actions for the next five years (Appendix I) are also identified.

Recent Deliberations
As already noted, a dedicated full-time CAC was recommended in a motion passed by the Climate Action Committee for council consideration at its July 25, 2022 meeting. (See agenda, pg. 83-86). Council back then forwarded this along with recommendations from our other committees for consideration by the new council. 

This option for a full-time CAC was also recommended by the Committee of the Whole for council approval in a 4-1 vote last month after an initial motion (defeated 3-2) failed to approve the original staff approach. I voted in favour of both since i think either route will significantly advance local climate action.

On Feb. 27, council approve the $27k contribution to release the Local Government Climate Action Program funds.  We also asked for further information on the two options via an A/B comparison, and that is what is presented in tomorrow'a agenda as follows: 

​* Option A: Staff Recommendation (revised significantly for March 17 agenda)  
The  staff report has been significantly revised, fleshed out and improved, so much so that I will have no trouble voting for this option tomorrow after the original left me torn and confused, especially in terms of the climate-action work to be undertaken by the recommended planning staffer.

Now the substantial climate responsibilities of that near-future hire has been delineated fully.  The role of the CRD Climate Action Service in our own local climate work has been clarified, and the actions from the Sooke Climate Action Plan to be tackled in 2023 are better explained.  

Read the report starting on pg. 99, including an Appendix A (2023 Project List) breakdown of this year's 20 immediate actions led by a to-be-hired and climate-focused senior member of the planning department. Its main recommendations: 
​
1. Near-future hiring of this senior planning manager (aka "Manager of Community Planning"; or "Manager of Climate Action, Planning & Development") whose salary is already in the Five-Year budget and won't draw down any of the $162k climate budget. The job description is yet to be written, but we're told he/she/they would focus primarily on: 

i) Coordination of staff in operationalizing the District’s whole-of-organization LCR strategy
ii) Policy development as directed by council 
iii) Continued focus on the implementation and carbon-accounting phases of the
 Partners for Climate Protection’s five-milestone program (Sooke is one of 500+ local government members of this initiative of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and ICLEI Canada; Carolsfeld took us to milestone three last year with the creation of the CAP.)   

 2. This individual would coordinate staff from multiple departments in proceeding with 20 CAP actions this year. Most are already built into work plans. Others will require funding from the climate budget. And some can be tackled by willing non-profits should a special climate-action stream be created under the Community Grant program (i.e., Zero Waste pop-up pilot project, food security eduction for residents, e-mobility showcases).

Funded from the $162k climate budget: 
$20k – Grant writing/marketing/communications (i.e., promotion of heat pump/EV incentives, FireSmart) 
$30k - Grant funding (matching contributions held in the Climate Reserve Fund)
$20k – Co-working Hub Pilot
$13k - Municipal Fleet and Facility Assessments 
$15-30k - Transit shelter additions (the aforementioned TMP priority) 
$20k - Expanded Community Grant funding specific to climate-action initiatives 
$20k – Walk'n'Roll Stops (i.e., safe pick-up/drop-off spots away from Sooke Rd. at our schools)
$5k – Invasive species program (i.e., Japanese knotweed in the Sooke River)
$5k – Natural assets program 
$5k – "Welcome to Your Watershed" homeowner educational kits

Extra funds are possible via successful grant applications from sources listed at CleanBC's Community Climate Funding webpage and elsewhere. 

The reserve funds will be there to support TBD initiatives that may arise in the months ahead -- a tree-planting campaign, for instance, food security initiatives or funding for the proposed Climate Education and Community Development Society, which is cited as one of the CAP's 25 short-term priorities.  We'll hear more about this prospective society from former Climate Action Committee members Shandell Houlden and Elizabeth Lange at a Committee of the Whole this spring.


* Option B: Hiring of a Climate Action Coordinator (CAC)
Here's last summer's Climate Action Committee recommendation. 

WHEREAS the District of Sooke’s interim Climate Action Coordinator has, over the nine-month term of her contract, contributed greatly to the District’s planning, preparation and response to its declared Climate Emergency as detailed in the CAC's final report (pp. 301 onward) received by Council on June 21; 

AND WHEREAS these contributions include:
  • the drafting of a multi-year Sooke Climate Action Plan rooted in emergency response planning and 7% Solution GHG reduction strategies;
  • foundational work on the District’s Sooke 2030 citizen mobilization and awareness campaign;
  • ongoing development of the FCM Partners for Climate Protection five-milestone program as applicable to the District;
  • staff coordination in operationalizing the District’s Low Carbon Resilience whole-of-organization strategy;
  • and the contribution of detailed staff reports to committees and Council on such subjects as a Sooke waste management strategy, telework centre opportunities, metrics and tools for green businesses in Sooke, and LCR co-benefits as applicable to the District’s CED Action Plan.

​AND WHEREAS all of this vital work is in its preliminary stages and will require dedicated staff resources that can only partially be fulfilled through the District's intention to hire a Community Development Coordinator

AND WHEREAS the District of Sooke will receive approx. $130k annually through 2025 from the Province’s newly announced Local Government Climate Action Program, whose flexible guidelines allow for staff funding;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT [the Climate Action Committee recommend] the District of Sooke commit in the budget planning process, to the hiring of a full-time Climate Action Coordinator.


All good and logical and needed at the time. The difference now, for me at least, is that the CRD Climate Action Service is now established and, critically, we're promised that the  planning department's new hire will address many of these needs, as per the exact language in tomorrow's report: 

~ Coordinate and manage the actioning of initiatives from Sooke’s 2030 Climate Action Plan as identified by Council as priorities during the annual budget cycle;

~  Recommend to Council policies, programs and regulations to protect and enhance the natural environment and reduce GHG emissions;

~ Conduct, research, and develop policy identified as Council priorities through strategic planning and in alignment with the Climate Action Plan and the Official Community Plan (OCP); and

~ Lead, guide, and support initiatives that move Sooke toward a resilient, low- carbon future.


This is by no means an exhaustive list and the “job title” would be updated accordingly (i.e. Manager of Climate Action, Planning and Development; Manager of Community Planning). This list and the sample title are meant to outline the potential of this action and identify how, organizationally, we can ensure we have the in-house industry expertise to help reduce community-wide GHG emissions in a variety of areas, including but not limited to land use, transportation and buildings." 

Even without seeing the still unwritten job description of this future Manager of Community/Climate Action Planning (or whatever the final title), the revised staff approach merits full support from council in 2023. A reassessment based on how things unfold the rest of this year can be done during next year's budget planning. 

With access to a full $162k per year in funding for this and the next two years at a time when money of this kind would be an incredibly hard sell in the Sooke budget (we battled to get just over $100k for climate action in 2022), this to me is the right and appropriate way to launch Sooke 2030 - extending trust and support to motivated staff working in conjunction with the CRD, non-profits and other allies. Others in the community who want a more urgent response will and do disagree, of course, but there you have it. 

Wild-Card: Growing Communities Fund
Excellent, unexpected news of late is that the District will receive a one-time $5.9 million as its share of the Province of BC's $1 billion Growing Communities Fund. Municipalities are free to use this windfall as they wish in addressing their unique infrastructure and amenity needs. "These grants will support projects that each community needs the most, like new affordable housing and child-care facilities, road improvements or recreation centres," said Minister of Municipal Affairs Anne Kang. 

Staff is recommending that the funds be spent as follows:
* $1.4m: Five Year Road Program addition
* $100k: Patch and Pave road improvements
* $1m: Matching funds to complete the DeMamiel Creek crossing 
* $2.4m: Church Road roundabout (its original budget has, rather shockingly, seemingly doubled in three crazy years) 
* $970k: Sports Box at Raven Ridge Park improvements, including landscaping, stadium seating and a basketball court

All good and needed. I'm assuming that previously budgeted funds for this work can be freed up to lessen the overall tax hit and bolster reserve funds. [Council, incidentally, is being presented with no alternatives to this grant-spending menu; other options logically would be drawn from relatively low-cost short-term priorities identified in our 2020 Parks and Transportation Master Plans: nature and urban trail development; John Phillips Memorial Park master planning; waterfront access ramps and staircases; a wayfinding sign program to spotlight local gems (the Rotary Pier, for instance); new water spray park; a downtown public toilet; and/or a percentage of the 20 bus stop improvements identified in the TMP at a cost of $10k each.  I'm curious to know if any of these were considered. We might also want to park $$$ in the Capital Assets Reserve Fund.]

The Growing Communities funding guidelines state the following as eligible expenses: 


  • Public drinking water supply, treatment facilities and water distribution;
  • Local portion of affordable/attainable housing developments;
  • Childcare facilities;
  • Municipal or regional capital projects that service, directly or indirectly, neighbouring First Nation communities;
  • Wastewater conveyance and treatment facilities;
  • Storm water management;
  • Solid waste management infrastructure;
  • Public safety/emergency management equipment and facilities not funded by senior level government;
  • Local road improvements and upgrades;
  • Sidewalks, curbing and lighting;
  • Active transportation amenities not funded by senior level government;
  • Improvements that facilitate transit service;
  • Natural hazard mitigation;
  • Park additions/maintenance/upgrades including washrooms/meeting space and other amenities; and
  • Recreation-related amenities.
Further to the above-noted capital costs, one-off costs can include:

• Costs of feasibility studies (including infrastructure capacity assessment); other early-stage development work; costs of designing, tendering and acquiring land (where it is wholly required for eligible infrastructure projects); constructing eligible infrastructure projects; and, in limited situations, non-capital administrative costs where these are necessary, for example adding staff capacity related to development or to establish complementary financing for local government owned infrastructure or amenities." 


Tax Hikes Elsewhere in BC
The City of Vancouver last week okayed a 10.7% increase, a decision that "sucks," said Mayor Sims, but which is "necessary to improve core city services like policing, fire services, road work, sanitation and  infrastructure maintenance."

Victoria councillors have so far carved an initially proposed 8.99% increase back by two points to meet their commitment to tie hikes to the cost of living yet face pushback from the Victoria Police Department, which isn't interested in freezing its own budget.

Nanaimo is looking at a "public safety budget" requiring a 7.3% increase, while policing costs is at the core Surrey's 16.5% proposed hike. (which it reduced to 12% thanks to its Growing Communities funding.) 

Among towns more comparable to our own in terms of population at least, provisional budgets (i.e., the first figure each council is presented prior to the hard decisions and number crunching): Central Saanich (4.95%), Sidney (4.93%), Colwood (5.48%), Duncan (9.9%).

Looking at these increases in isolation minus the context of tax increases over a decade or longer renders them rather useless; municipalities that froze taxes for a year or more (as we did circa 2011-14 vs. those that have spent wisely in keeping pace with community needs are faced with lower or higher increases based on those earlier decisions.  

Lake Country, BC (pop. 15,000) is on the map this year for its 17% property tax increase, one based largely on increased policing costs.  

Scan to end of this CBC Metro Matters article for a chart of this year's proposed Lower Mainland tax increases, topped by Langley and Port Moody in the 11% range.

Line item listing ... some of these rates are adopted, some are still under consideration (click links for news articles) 
- Colwood ~ 6.43% (final)
​- Saanich ~ 7.1% (provisional)  
​- City of Victoria - 6% (provisonal)
- Powell River ~ 5.4% (final)
- Port Alberni ~ 6.9% (final) 
- Penticton ~ 9.5% (primarily due to police and fire hires) 
- Bowen Island ~ 13.3% (provisional) 
- Nelson ~ 5.8% (provisional) 
- Regional District of Nanaimo ~ 8.9% (final)
​- Cowichan Valley Regional District  ~ 11.49% (final)
- Village of Kelso ~ 6% 
- Prince Rupert ~ 15.7% (provisional) 
- New Westminster - 6.4% (provisional)




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