Sechelt council has approved creating a statutory reserve fund for affordable housing, but has deferred initial readings on the creation of a similar fund for community amenities.
The district already has an account where it’s been holding cash contributions for affordable housing from developers and the reserve fund bylaw spells out that “monies in the Reserve Fund shall be used to encourage, create, stimulate and secure affordable housing opportunities within the District of Sechelt,” which includes things like drafting an affordable housing strategy, buying land, or funding affordable housing projects for registered societies, not for profits, community partnerships, commissions or district-owned corporations.
Adoption of the bylaw also clears the way for Sechelt to provide some of the funding requested recently by the Sunshine Coast Affordable Housing Society, which has now made presentations to Sechelt, Gibsons, and the Sunshine Coast Regional District outlining the need to hire professional staff as it moves forward with its first big projects.
The society aims to use the local government funding as a bridge until the rental income from its developments starts to flow.
Council also voted at the Oct. 16 meeting to authorize the transfer of around $63,750 from the affordable housing account into the statutory reserve.
The community amenity reserve fund, which was also on the Oct. 16 agenda, is being proposed to hold and administer money collected from developers for assets such as recreational facilities or parks, contributions for libraries, museums, archive or heritage conservation, public art or “downtown revitalization.”
Coun. Matt McLean said that although adopting the affordable housing reserve bylaw made sense, he wanted to hold off on considering the amenities reserve until after councillors had a chance to discuss a policy on how to collect and administer the funds.
“I’d like to see the accompanying policy while we’re considering the bylaw… To consider one without the other just seems incomplete,” McLean said in putting forward a motion to defer, which was supported by councillors Tom Lamb, Eric Scott, and Janice Kuester.
The policy, which was presented at the Oct. 23 committee of the whole meeting, would cover both reserves.
The draft policy spells out recommended cash contributions from developers of between $3,600 and $5,000 per unit for both the amenities and affordable housing reserves as well as options like on-site units for a “non-profit registered society for permanent affordable housing.”
McLean spoke in favour of the draft policy.
“The key thing behind this is that when a developer comes into the community, they need to provide a community benefit,” he said. “I’m generally in favour of this because a developer needs to provide value to the community and that’s what this sets out.”
In previous discussions around amenities and affordable housing contributions, councillors have said some of the suggested contributions were too high and might actually drive up the cost of housing or discourage developers from moving forward.
“As this is a policy and not a firm bylaw, there is some room for negotiation,” planner Andrew Allen told the committee. “What I’m trying to do is provide a baseline or some parameters of expectations… The idea here is to provide some predictability.”
Scott said he would rather see the policy spell out maximums with room to negotiate downwards.
Kuester agreed. “The whole idea is we want people to be able to come in, know what they’re getting from the get-go and maybe it can go down, yes if they’re going to give us affordable units which we all want in our community, but not go up – I don’t think that’s even an option here.”
Although generally supported by the committee of the whole, the new policy was not forwarded to council for adoption. Instead councillors voted to send the policy out to the housing committee and the Advisory Planning Commission for input before considering it any further.
