The District of Squamish is still finalizing its policy towards community amenity contributions.
On May 22, District manager Gary Buxton presented to committee a draft policy hoping to finalize the document, but councillors sent staff back to make further changes, with a request that it will come back to council for ratification.
Community amenity contributions (CACs) refer to payments either in cash or in-kind contributions that developers provide to the District as part of rezoning agreements.
Building affordable housing has been established as the council’s current priority, so the draft document emphasizes encouraging large developments to designate 10 per cent of the units “affordable housing” that can be rented at below-market prices.
Last Tuesday council debated the merits of accepting below-market units instead of cash.
In theory, the District could collect money from developers to build the District’s own affordable apartments, like the project proposed for Buckley Avenue.
The problem, said Buxton, is that the District has little available land to build those projects on.
In addition, they are expensive construction projects that require a large amount of capital and planning, compared with having developers build units into their existing projects.
“If we take cash in lieu it’s useful from a critical amenities point of view. We have all sorts of ways we can spend that money. My concern is that if we take cash for affordable housing we don’t have any land. It’s going to be very difficult to spend that money,” said Buxton.
Squamish’s CACs have been designated on a case-by-case basis, but since 2015 the District has been working with guidelines while developing a consistent policy.
The specific requirements can be read in the draft policy, and are specific to project size, with different options for those that are less than 50 dwelling units.
On Tuesday, some councillors expressed concern that the current arrangement might provide new units, but also give developers too much of a discount. One issue, according to staff, is that the in-kind units are very hard to compare to cash contributions.
“Is it much, much, cheaper to just supply some affordable housing units that you’re going to sell at a bit of a discount and still may appreciate over time but not quite as much as a full market, versus several million dollars of cash?” asked Coun. Doug Race.
Race said having units built by the developer might be more efficient, but he wanted to make sure the District is getting good value. His concern about calculating cost were echoed by Coun. Karen Elliott and Jason Blackman-Wulff.
The cash contributions don’t need to be limited to affordable housing. They can be used toward a variety of projects, including District facilities like parks and recreation or new infrastructures like city hall or a new fire hall.
Coun. Ted Prior argued for flexibility in drastic zoning changes and said he was also concerned that developers could be selling off less desirable units for affordable housing.
“I start looking at the numbers on the rezoning, and calculating in my mind what developers are making,” he said. “I think some of the developments going on right now are just killing it and we’re not getting our share of it. We’re not getting a new swimming pool, we’re not getting a new city hall, and we’re just not getting our share.”
Buxton said the policy could be revisited if the urgent need for housing decreases and council could choose to shift to cash contributions.
