Last week we heard that there is a major housing crisis on the Sunshine Coast, both for renters and prospective homebuyers who are priced out of the market. This week we saw one example of how difficult it is for local government to even scratch the surface of the problem.
Gibsons council’s proposal to convert five unused road dedications into residential lots for affordably priced homes ran into serious pushback Tuesday from residents of one of the targeted neighbourhoods. Issues raised include geotechnical concerns and intrusion on a wildlife corridor. “You’ve just granted $4,000 for a study to allow our parklands to be given to someone else,” one Glassford Road resident fumed at council.
Mayor Wayne Rowe could only respond that the proposal is still in the exploratory stage. Despite the Town’s sincere efforts to make a difference, the public reaction so far is not promising for little lane homes in Gibsons.
And it’s not much easier to find housing solutions at the senior government level.
The province’s attempt this summer to rein in the runaway Metro Vancouver real estate market was a bold step but it has also drawn heavy criticism. While saying “action was obviously needed and badly overdue,” NDP leader John Horgan told Premier Christy Clark this week that the 15 per cent property tax on foreign buyers “is both failing to address the real problems facing Lower Mainland residents and creating significant unintended consequences.”
In a Sept. 7 letter to the premier, Horgan calls for “significant improvements” to the legislation: redefining foreign national as an individual who has not paid income tax in B.C. for the most recent taxation year, exempting foreign nationals who are working and paying taxes in B.C. and are being penalized under the new system, and closing a “well-known loophole” that allows foreign capital to use bare trusts to avoid the property transfer tax.
Horgan also warns that, by geographically limiting the tax to Metro Vancouver, the government’s move “may now drive the problem to other areas of the province.”
It’s too early to know whether that concern is warranted, but it’s important to recognize that governmental solutions to complex problems like the lack of affordable housing, no matter how well intended, can easily cause more problems than they solve.
