Sunshine Coast housing committee delegate Matt Thomson addressed Gibsons council on Tuesday, Dec. 9 with the SCHC’s proposal to develop affordable housing units.
Thomson spoke about the idea of community land trusts (CLT) in his presentation, an idea he brought forward to Sechelt council just prior to the Nov. 15 municipal election.
Simply put, a CLT is comparable to a housing co-op. Units of varying size will be built on land owned by the Town of Gibsons. The units themselves will be sold or rented at affordable prices to people who qualify as having a “below the median income,” according to the SCHC’s proposal.
Median income in Gibsons is estimated at $50,000 to $55,000, up since 2005 when the median income was just under $47,000.
The term for this kind of arrangement is shared equity. It’s fairly common in the United States where there are about 250 CLTs, with the most notable one in the San Juan Islands — America’s counterpart to the Gulf Islands.
Shared equity seems to be working for them, according to Thomson, and as a community accessible only by ferry with a median income of just over $51,000, it stands to reason that it could work on the Sunshine Coast, as well.
However, there are three factors identified by Thomson that present potential concerns for CLTs in Gibsons.
The first is capital funding and the bureaucracy that goes along with determining a funding formula between all three local governments (Gibsons, Sechelt and the regional district).
The second is the cost of developing the affordable housing units balanced against the funding for other development projects, of which there haven’t been many since 2008.
“Often local governments will leverage new development in order to fund affordable housing, and when that new development isn’t happening then there isn’t a lot of money going into the purse,” he said.
There already is some affordable housing on the Coast, but Thomson said he is less worried about this.
Currently there are eight affordable housing units in Sechelt for mental health housing and some development under the Sunshine Coast Association for Community Living for individuals with developmental disabilities.
“Those are very targeted types of affordable housing, not more broadly oriented towards older adults or young families or households requiring subsidies,” Thomson said.
Council moved to go ahead with the proposal tentatively, but with a second vote scheduled for next Tuesday’s regular council meeting, to ensure that all councillors are still onboard with the CLT project.
