Half of all new Penticton residents will be seniors

Half of all new Penticton residents over the next 30 years will be seniors, according to a report presented this week to council, leading some to wonder what’s being done to encourage younger people to come here, too.

“I understand there’s a strong desire for the retired population to be looking at Penticton and I understand the reasons why, but what does that do for our economy?” said Coun. Max Picton.

“Should we actually be looking at sort of revamping our resident recruitment strategy?” he wondered after listening to a staff report on the $50,000 housing needs assessment report completed by Vancouver-based Urbanics Consultants, which estimated a total population gain of 8,000 people by 2046.

City manager Peter Weeber replied that running a successful resident attraction strategy is “difficult at best” in Penticton due to the high cost of living and relatively few good-paying jobs.

He noted past recruitment strategies as a means to expand the economy have been marginally successful, triggering the need to refocus on expanding existing businesses

Weeber said he plans to roll out a new strategy in 2018 that will put economic development under the leadership of development services director Anthony Haddad.

But where new workers will live is still unknown: A lack of housing for lower-paid retail and services workers was one of the problems identified in the housing report.

It found the stock of rental housing increased by just five per cent to 2,263 units between 1991 and 2016, while prices rose 96 per cent.

Another gap the study identified was in the entry-level home ownership sector for young professionals. The study pegged the average cost of a home at $425,000, which just 17 per cent of current residents can afford.

The study also found a third of residents are already paying more for housing than the maximum 30 per cent of pre-tax income recommended by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

Planning manager Blake Laven noted council has issued building permits for approximately 250 new rental units over the past two years, which should ease the crunch, although the roughly 130 new dwellings that went up annually for the past five years have simply been catch-up from leaner times.

“Even though it seems like we’re going through a boom right now, we’re not,” said Laven.

Recommendations contained in the report range from having the city place more emphasis on infill and densification in areas ripe for redevelopment to creating a publicly owned housing corporation.

Haddad said those findings will be taken into consideration during the process currently underway to update the Official Community Plan.