Big changes in housing plan

The City of Kelowna is contemplating changes to the way it compensates developers who plan to build affordable housing in the city.

Potential changes were outlined in the interim report on the city’s new Housing Action Plan.

The plan lays out several objectives and a number of action items in order to meet those objectives.

It comes as the city looks to build nearly 19,000 new units to accommodate the current need and the needs of new residents by 2031.

The city also needs to satisfy specific housing targets over the next several years imposed by both the federal government through the $31.5 million Housing Accelerator Fund and the province.

“We know from the 2023 housing needs assessment that Kelowna needs homes for a growing population. This includes ownership and rental housing as well as housing with supports,” said social development supervisor Stephanie Martin.

“One area where we saw a major shortage was in subsidized rentals.

“Affordability remains a key challenge in our community with low income renters such as seniors and single parent families being disproportionately impacted.”

The plan includes high-level objectives such as offering a range of housing, making homelessness rare and leading on housing issues.

City staff say they have identified 26 action items including five high-impact items for swift and effective implementation.

These include strengthening incentives for affordable housing developers, reducing municipal charges for affordable housing projects, specifically development cost charges and ensuring parking regulations don’t reduce housing affordability by driving up costs.

While council did endorse moving forward with the plan, there were a few areas of concern, specifically around city incentives and parking.

Coun. Rick Webber questioned what is wrong with the current bonusing program he says seemed to be working well.

“These are related to density bonusing and that usually means contributions of affordable units or contributions to the housing opportunities reserve fund,” said planner Graham Allison.

“Research found there could be more effective ways of providing affordable units through density bonusing.

“The focus is on accelerating the pace at which we need the delivery of non-market units. It’s our Number 1 area of deficiency.

Parking concerns

Webber and Coun. Luke Stack both issued concerns about any parking related changes.

Stack acknowledged developers do have trouble when it comes to parking their sites.

“Although it may sometimes be assumed people on more modest incomes only have one vehicle or no vehicle, experience has shown that is not the case,” said Stack.

“In many households you have two working adults in a townhouse for instance and they need two parking stalls, not half a parking stall.

“This is a very, very contentious issue around the city and as much as I believe 100 per cent in affordable housing we have to integrate it into the neighbourhoods that exist and they have expectations around housing.”

On that front, planning director Ryan Smith says staff are intending to hold a couple of workshops on the issue with council in the not-too-distant future.

“As we discuss on-site parking we will also weave in the theme of affordability because I think it needs to be top of mind,” said Smith.

“If we are going to increase parking requirements with housing types, that is also going to increase the cost of parking depending on the type of parking.”

Staff will bring back its final plan for council’s consideration in early 2025.