Oliver kicking tires on municipal housing authority
Supporting new social housing through existing tools like land donations and upzonings is probably the best way for a small community like Oliver to continue boosting its rental stock, according to a policy expert who spoke to council this week about the idea of municipal housing corporations.
Sandy Mackay, research and policy lead for the non-profit M’akola Housing Corporation, gave council an overview of the affordable housing landscape during a presentation at Tuesday’s committee of the whole meeting.
He was invited to speak about municipal housing authorities in places like Whistler, Tofino, Revelstoke and Cowichan Valley, where local governments are supporting arm’s-length corporations or societies that build rental housing for permanent residents. Such support generally takes the form of cash or land donations.
Mackay said Tofino invests about $250,000 annually into its program, which is a relatively large amount for a small community.
“It is an incredibly expensive proposition to begin a housing authority… and that municipal contribution alone does not guarantee affordability. You still need those huge million-dollar influxes” from senior governments,” said Mackay.
Instead, he suggested Oliver continue with its approach of supporting groups like M’akola — which opened a 46-unit apartment building on Airport Street in 2022 — where possible, advocating for more funding from senior governments, waiving development fees and upzoning properties to allow more infill.
“You can have just as large an impact in the short term as a housing authority… because those are going to take years and years before they start to see a return on investment,” said Mackay.
Doing nothing, he continued, is not an option with 40% of Oliver residents already spending more than 30% of their income on housing, according to Census 2021 data.
Mackay also presented statistics showing how social housing accounted for about 15% of all new homes built in Canada in the 1970s, but plunged to only about 1% by 2010 as a result of “disinvestment” by senior governments.
That trend is evident in Penticton, where about two-thirds of the rental housing stock was built before 1980, according to data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which does not maintain such information for Oliver.
Mayor Martin Johansen zeroed in on the definition of affordable housing.
“We’re looking at infill projects where they’re putting a fourplex on a single lot and it’s being sold by the developer as affordable when a unit is going to be $550,000. So, who is that affordable to?” said Johansen.
“That’s one of the terms that I struggle with.”
Mackay said the “accepted definition” of affordable housing is 30% of a family’s income, although communities like Oliver can set their own thresholds based on local conditions and work toward those targets.
“But, you’re right, the word affordable can be, I think, used disingenuously in certain circumstances by certain people to advocate for a specific building typology,” said Mackay, “and it also changes based on different funding programs.”
M’akola Housing Society is involved in 50 projects in 30 communities across B.C. with approximately 3,000 residential units under management.
Its upcoming projects include a 28-unit, five-storey building on the 600 block of Main Street in downtown Penticton that’s slated to open next year.