Last week the folks at BC Business magazine named Squamish the best city for work in the province. That sure sounds promising, just as long as prospective employees understand rental accommodations are thin to non-existent and from all reports it looks like thin recently left town.
A comprehensive housing report issued by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities claims that “a healthy housing market is the cornerstone of a strong economy… it’s easy to overlook the important role that rental accommodation plays.”
Using data from 27 Canadian municipalities and urban regions, the report indicates that since 2005 home-ownership costs rose three times faster than income. At the same time, the availability of rental units has declined and the cost of renting has increased significantly.
According to the authors of the report, beyond the short-term employment spinoffs and economic benefits of new rental construction, increasing the rental supply is essential in communities where businesses are rapidly expanding their workforces.
The report sheds light on some of the successful housing initiatives undertaken by various Canadian municipalities.
For example, Saskatoon boosted rental housing starts by offering builders a $5,000-per-unit incentive grant and a five-year incremental tax rebate for purpose-built rental housing.
In Ontario, a number of regions and municipalities have added to their rental supply through various mechanisms.
The Region of Durham tapped into federal and provincial government rental and supportive housing programs to allocate more than $22.7 million in funding for new affordable rental housing.
The City of Hamilton encouraged new affordable housing projects by waiving development charges and cash in lieu of parkland dedication fees for projects built under federal, provincial or municipal housing programs. Hamilton also offers a reduced multi-residential tax rate for new rental buildings.
Since 2004, officials in London accessed the Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program offered by the Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation to convert vacant space in commercial areas to self-contained rental residential units. As well, the city is focusing on the redevelopment or conversion of vacant and/or underutilized residential and non-residential structures to new rental units.
To achieve their affordable housing goals, officials in the Region of Waterloo made sure that for every $1 spent by the local government on housing initiatives $13 was leveraged from other sources through partnership arrangements. Closer to home, the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of British Columbia recently cut to the chase with its Responsible Housing Development campaign. That program petitions municipalities to increase the rental housing supply by reducing the tangle of fees, red tape, regulatory complexity and unacceptable delays driving up building costs.
We know the Squamish Housing Task Force has made a number of recommendations to boost the local rental supply and various projects are planned, or already under construction. But will those initiatives be enough to ease the accommodation crisis in this community?
