Council turns down social housing project on Green Ave.
Right idea, wrong place. Penticton city council on Tuesday night rejected a plan to place a 52-unit social housing project on Green Avenue due mainly to the site’s proximity to schools and concerns about crime and drug activity that might accompany it.
Following a two-hour public hearing, council voted to deny the necessary rezoning and instead have staff work with BC Housing to come up with alternate locations. The move pushes back the timeline for construction of the units, which were expected to open by the end of 2018.
“We’re not against the project, we’re against the location,” Green Avenue resident Mike Biden told the public hearing, echoing a common sentiment.
Many spoke in favour of the location as well, including Linda Sankey with the South Okanagan Similkameen Brain Injury Society.
She asked anyone in the gallery if they had experienced any of the anticipated problems at the social housing the organization runs on Brunswick Avenue, which was built in the 1990s to help those with addictions. No one raised a hand.
After the marathon hearing, Coun. Andre Martin agreed with residents of the Green Avenue area, saying they have done their “fair share” when it comes to the amount of social housing on Penticton’s south side.
Coun. Max Picton agreed, adding from what he has heard at conferences on homelessness and the education provided to him, congregating social housing is not a good solution.
“There’s a term for that — it’s called a ghetto,” Picton said.
“That’s not what I want for our Main Street.”
BC Housing regional director Ann Howard spoke on behalf of the project, which proposed consolidating the vacant site with the adjacent Skaha Sunrise property, a 46-unit former motel converted to social housing in 2010.
She said the site as it was could have held double the amount of people as it does now and still meet zoning density requirements. However, the rezoning was intended to give some breathing room and put some use to the vacant adjacent property already purchased by BC Housing years ago.
“We worked closely with the city to identify possible sites. We looked at many and none of them were the perfect site. We could not find anything that just was ideal. We did have this site at Skaha,” Howard said.
Provincial funding was put in place to allow at least two around-the-clock staff members on site at all times through the ASK Wellness Society, which already manages the Fairhaven social housing complex.
Mayor Andrew Jakubeit said it wasn’t an easy decision to reject the project during a housing crisis.
“Hopefully, working with staff, we can look at some of the other options and maybe some of the options they didn’t spend a lot of time on because they sort of gravitated to the Green Avenue (location),” said Jakubeit.
City planning manager Blake Laven called it a “setback,” but was optimistic about moving forward with BC Housing.
“We talked to the community. A decision was made. That doesn’t effect that really strong relationship we have with” BC Housing, Laven said.
“The need is still out there. BC Housing still has a mandate to provide housing for this population.”