A Regional District of Nanaimo committee turned down the idea to create a regional affordable housing strategy. A recommendation was in front of a Committee of the Whole meeting on July 15, where directors voiced opposition to spending money on studies and public consultation without guarantee of concrete action on the issue.
One major issue discussed was the need for water and sewer infrastructure in the RDN, which is a hinderance to development.
“To me it seems like that’s where we should be doubling down. We need our infrastructure funded – we need grant funding to do that. In order to do that, we need to understand where we can build with existing infrastructure and where we will need entirely new infrastructure,” said Lehann Wallace, director for the French Creek area (electoral area G). “I would be happy to endorse study of the actual infrastructure needed in order to, I’ll say, bring District 69 and District 68 on some sort of level playing ground for where we can actually start tackling these things.”
Planning staff at the RDN said studying infrastructure would be part of the report and not doing the study could risk funding opportunities from other levels of government.
Money for the report would have come from provincial grants and the RDN’s regional planning service reserve fund. The mayors in Nanaimo and Parksville were not in favour, pointing to their own municipal affordable housing plans.
Parksville mayor Doug O’Brien said his city accepts its responsibility to fill affordability gaps and work is already being done. “Save your money folks. We have got this in hand so I don’t need a partnership and I don’t need to spend RDN dollars to look at another consultation to identify gaps,” he said.
Director for the Coombs area (electoral area F) Leanne Salter said she would like to see the RDN focus on a more micro level by looking at bylaws that could support affordability, rather than spending money on a big-picture report. “I am having a hard time thinking that we figure we are going to get anywhere with this,” she said.
Electoral area B (Gabriola) director Vanessa Craig supported the study and said even without water and sewer services, she would be interested to see what is possible in rural areas.
“Area B has zero areas that are serviced, yet a non-profit is developing an affordable housing development with BC Housing on donated land and so there are ways of developing higher density, affordable housing – even in rural areas without servicing,” she said. “I am also interested in seeing how this could feed into the regional growth strategy and the conversation we have had about servicing in the village centre.”
The committee turned down creation of the regional affordable housing strategy and a motion to get a scoping report on a regional housing partnership.
READ MORE: Water availability the biggest challenge for building home in the RDN
