How do you define “affordable” rental housing?

Affordable rental housing is housing where the total monthly shelter cost (gross monthly rent incuding utilities – heat, hydro and hot water – but excluding parking and cable television charges) is at or below one times the average regional rent, by unit type (number of bedrooms), as reported annually by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

How do you define “affordable” ownership housing?

Affordable ownership housing is housing with a purchase price that is affordable to households of low and moderate income, which are households within the lowest 60 percent of the income distribution for the region, as determined by Statistics Canada. Affordable in this context means monthly housing costs (ie mortgage principal and interest payment amortized over 25 years and assuming a 25 per cent down payment, and taxes) do not exceed the average monthly rent for the region, by unit type, as reported annually by the Canada Mortage and Housing Corporation. Affordable ownership price includes the GST and other mandatory costs associated with purchasing the unit.

Canada Mortgage and Housing has some great information on trends. For instances:   Average monthly rents ranged from $665 for bachelor suites to $1,223 for apartments with three bedrooms or more. One- and two-bedroom apartments were the most common in the Victoria CMA (57 and 31 per cent of the private rental apartment stock), and in October 2010 these were being rented for $806 and $1,024 (on average), respectively.

Saanich needs to continue to maintain our Urban Containment Boundary (UBC) to ensure that we are developing complete communities. I have never supported moving that containment boundary and I have always been a strong supporter of the Regional Growth Strategy as a way for us to not expand our costly infrastructure or erode our valuable green infrastructure.

Saanich probably has the strongest policy around the UBC and that is we will not expand it without a vote of our residents.

In order to continue to supply housing needs we need to use our land more efficiently by building housing close to employment, shops and learning institutions. That’s why the Shelbourne Valley Corridor Planning process happening now should provide us with a great opportunity, over a number of years, to revitalize an area and create a sense of place. I’m looking forward to receiving that draft in 2012.

When I sat as a Board Member of Smart Growth BC we did a lot of work around defining affordable housing policies, programs and strategies for local government. Saanich has used some, but not all and as we move forward we should look at the following, where appropriate:

Inclusionary Zoning (zoning that provides housing for all income groups); Secondary suites (Saanich has in selected area, will look to expanding into other areas after public process); Density bonus; Resale Price Restrictions; Housing Fund (Saanich was one of the first to sign on to the CRD Housing Trust Fund); Land Banking; Housing Organizations and Partnerships for affordable housing