28 Jul 2025 Special Council meeting Housing

Housing Target Progress Report July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025

Motion
That Council receive the Housing Target Progress Report for the reporting period 2024- JUL-01 to 2025-JUN-30 in accordance with Ministerial Order M203-2024.
Minutes, page 7
Sources
Agenda itemCity agenda, whole meeting
Staff reportPage 1
Purpose
To present to Council a Housing Target Progress Report for the reporting period 2024-JUL-01 to 2025-JUN-30.
Staff report, page 1
Staff recommendation
That Council receive the Housing Target Progress Report for the reporting period 2024-JUL-01 to 2025-JUN-30 in accordance with Ministerial Order M203-2024.
Staff report, page 1
DocumentsStaff report about Housing, Land Use & Urban Form

Sheryl Armstrong Yes

The one bedrooms. I talked to lots of people that are out looking. Whatever. They don't. Want one bedrooms because they actually are more expensive. You can rent a two bedroom for $2,000. Versus renting a one bedroom for 1500. So it's a big savings for them, so it's kind of interesting. As to councilor Thorpe, the new building that went up beside me over almost a year ago. Is still only at 40%, no 60% capacity. They're sitting vacant and he's. Got like three months, all this kind of stuff. But I guess my concern comes around is the non market. I've been doing a lot of research on it and following what's? Going on in Toronto and Vancouver, and poor councilor hemmens gets my emails like, 230 in the morning. Check this one. Check that one. And what they're saying a lot of the developers is they can't afford it. Number one, the cost of infrastructure like this one they just pulled out of theirs because it was. $60,000 just in dccs to the community, and they said they can't. Afford that. Is that something that we're going to look at and they're pushing the province to start changing the method on dccs and start poning up for the communities to help pay for Inf. Infrastructure. Like I see, Vancouver just got $250,000,000 to help with infrastructure costs. Yet. The rest of us started getting that. So is that something we could look at? Is like, how can we afford to keep building here? When you talk to a lot of developers in the big cities. They're not developing anymore. Condos are sitting vacant and empty. A lot of them between Vancouver and Toronto. Some of the big ones. When. Rennie, the biggest rental company in Vancouver lays off 30% of their staff. We got a problem. And that's only going to trickle down to us, too. So what more can we do?

Questions and answers

Councillor Paul Manly
Speaker identificationConfident
Yes

asked
Ms. Rowett, please. Councilor manley. Thank you. Yeah, I had some questions about the target. I'm just wondering about the one bedroom and studio apartments. We're on that count. Is there a market demand? For studio in one bedroom apartments, because if there was, I'm sure that developers would be doing that, but I'm just curious about. Because we had discussions before about demand for more three bedroom and two bedroom units that there seemed to be a lock of them in the city. And that seems to what developers are doing now. So I'm curious, first of all, where does the province get these target numbers? And is there market research behind it? And are the developers building for the market? Or I would assume that they are. So I'm curious about that. Those numbers. How we end up
Lisa Brinkman
Speaker identificationConfident
answeredManager, Community Planning
with them. So it's a good question, and thank you for the question. There is a methodology to the targets, and it's a similar methodology to our housing needs. Report. So you'll see in the housing needs report similar ratios. As far as for the bedroom. And I think that one bedroom units just are more affordable, but I think you're right. That the development community. In my experience, the development community, the market is for a two bedroom, so. Even if it's a couple. Or an individual. They may want a bedroom and an office. And there is the market. There is for a two bedroom. But one bedrooms just are more affordable. Through the zoning bylaw. We can get into the business of dictating the number of bedrooms. Larger housing development. So that's something we can consider as we do the new zoning bylaw. That would be a
followed up
question for that project, yeah. I'm just curious about the research that's gone into it and what the need. Is. Based on the market. And so then the below market housing. We're far behind on that, but that's dependent on the province or the federal government stepping up to pay for that, correct? Correct. And if we don't meet our targets? Is there some accountability that the city is held to for not meeting these targets or. Is this what we've been given targets, but what is the process around
Lisa Brinkman
Speaker identificationConfident
answeredManager, Community Planning
Not meeting the targets. Yeah. So there are other municipalities that have housing target orders and have recently had, and I have to think of the province will send. If municipality isn't meeting their targets. They'll send a staff person. They have a term for it. It's not coming to me right now. To work with the staff. In our planning and building department to see if there's things we could be doing differently. Okay. We're very happy to meet
followed up
the heart target this year. So I'm curious about the converse, then, like, what do we do in terms of holding the province accountable? And the federal government accountable for the targets for non market housing because there is a definite need in our community. And so I was actually disappointed to see that we hit zero this year. Is

Councillor Ben Geselbracht
Speaker identificationConfident
Yes

asked
Councilor Thorpe, Councilor Armstrong. Thanks, mayor. Through you. On the non market housing. I think councilor Manley is very correct. I mean, it is provincial and federal dollars that are required to build that housing. And this year it showed that we are at a deficit. And I was recently at a meeting with a bunch of other. Electorate representatives across the province, and there's a lot of municipalities that are doing quite well. Hitting even though they have a housing order. They're hitting their market housing targets, but everybody is pretty much falling behind. In the non market housing, and you did show a slide there that said that there's 600 something units that are in process. But it's over a seven year period, and if I'm not correct. When we look at our housing needs assessment. It's been multiple years. Every time that I recall seeing the Housing needs assessment report that we are behind our non market housing targets by a significant amount. Could you speak a little bit? To that. Sorry, what was the question? Is. This year, not. Market housing target. Is it similar to. Preceding years, like the last five, six, seven years, where we've been doing a housing needs. Report that we have not met the non market housing targets. Thank you.
Lisa Brinkman
Speaker identificationConfident
answeredManager, Community Planning
Correct? Yes. When we have done the housing needs report 2023 and 2024, it's true that the non market housing or below market housing, both terms are used similarly. there is a shortage there is a need for more absolutely
followed up
Yeah, and. I don't think councilor Manley's remarks are far off the mark in terms of, like, there's been a lot of pressure, I think, on local government to be accountable to meeting our market housing targets, and most cases we've been meeting in it. But the accountability the other way around for the non market housing, which is showing that there's a big gap. That accountability is not there in the reverse direction, and I do think it is something to note. And to look at how we can

Councillor Ian Thorpe
Speaker identificationConfident
Yes

asked
Armstrong. Thank you, your worship. Through you, if I may. Thank you to staff for this report. I find it quite interesting. Recognizing that housing construction, to my mind, is almost always market driven. i struggle sometimes most of the time with being mandated by the province to Certain, possibly arbitrary targets. Telling our community. How much building we should be doing. So. I'm hearing that we're meeting those targets in most areas, and that's good news. I'm pleased about that. Does that tell me that if council chose in future we could be more selective in the type. And number of projects that we approve. That's provocative. That's my night. Mr. Lindsay wants to jump in, but I don't
City staff answered
Really think that's a rescue. Just maybe just slightly different perspective, your worship, from this side of the table, and I think I. Guess. First of all, I would say the vast majority of applications that come forward and get approved. We have in housing report recognizes this. We have a considerable amount of land. It's prezoned for development. So the vast majority of projects that come before us and ultimately get approved often do not come to council for rezoning. There's only a very small portion. Of applications that come to council. So whether or not council weighed this in future council decisions, I guess is up to you, but I would suggest it would likely not have a significant impact on the number, and the number is probably more reflective of other factors like the market at the time. And the economy and interest rates and commodity prices
followed up
and all those other places. Thank you. And I don't mean to give the impression that I'm anti development. At all. But I'm just curious. If we're meeting these targets, it sort of. Takes the pressure off us a little bit if we want it to. Yes. Mr. Holme, if
J. Holm
Speaker identificationConfident
answeredDirector, Planning and Development
I may? Thank you. Maybe I'll just add to Mr. Lindsay's comments, too, that I think what's reflected too, is that council has been very supportive of development generally and despite some of the province uses the terms sort of proactive or progressive planning, which. I think Nimo has been doing. As part of the reasoning for some of the changes that they've made recently, I think Nanaimo has been very progressive and proactive in a lot of the planning work. And the land use. Regulatory side, and I'm going to speak to some of that coming up in another item. But yeah. I think some of this reflects the history of. Proactive city from planning and regulatory perspective and also a very supportive council. And following up on we have city plan. The OCP, obviously. Sets direction for the community and for council and making decisions around land use. And we have Ms. Brinkman presented recently. On some capacity. That we have in city plan policy wise, for additional units in the city, and we're actually very well set up to support from a planning perspective. The servicing perspective is. Another side of it that we need to wrestle with, but we do have a lot of policy. Support and support politically for development. So that's appreciated and does
followed up
If I may or worship one other quick question to staff, and that is, do we have any data or stats on vacancy rates? We know our population in this area is growing quickly. We're building all of these new units. I'm really curious to know how many are occupied and how many are vacant. Do we have any data?
J. Holm
Speaker identificationConfident
answeredDirector, Planning and Development
on that? Mr. Holme. As far as the pardon me through your worship. So. Ms. Brinkman spoke to the overall rental vacancy rate, but. You're looking for units that are sitting vacant, not being used, that might be subject to. The vacancy speculation of vacancy tax of the province. I don't have that data. I'm not sure. That we get a regular report on that data. Certainly something we can

Councillor Janice Perrino
Speaker identificationConfident
Yes

asked
Your worship. I can't let this one go without asking the question. About. We are having residential units permitted, but are building permits issued? Is down. Is that because. Of to me the two. Do not necessarily suggest economic problems. What it looks like to me, given that we're going down is that we're having more problems getting our permits issued, and I'm wondering. If that's because we've had a struggle getting planning staff, I'm not. Even sure if we're up to full compliment already. And if that's a problem. Because I certainly hear from. The development community that. We are not getting our permits done in a timely fashion. I just wondered if you could respond. To that. I'll
City staff answered
speak to that. Thank you. Sure. Thank you. Certainly each year. Building permits issuance fluctuates, and there's a number of reasons for that. Building permits in many cases may be issued and not necessarily even picked up. So again, if financing is not in place or perhaps close to the end of a billing permit review. If the information hasn't been submitted, there isn't that completion to be able to issue the permit and again, financing not being in place. That's something we've seen. I think there have been several applications that have been in that category in the last year. Other than that. I'm just thinking about it. Better
J. Holm
Speaker identificationConfident
answeredDirector, Planning and Development
and through your worship to council Princi. Maybe add to that and you can see. In the graph. The next one. Yeah. I need even the one on the screen. Now you can see the there are cycles and you. Can see where these are permits issued. And if we track this against occupancy as well. There is only so much capacity in industry. You mentioned there are challenges, obviously, with staff capacity and ability as well, but to process the permits in a timely manner. But that does rely on industry. Both the professionals involved. And then the financers in that moving ahead with projects. Obviously they're going to watch the market closely. You can see cycles where we had 2019, we had a significant spike in permits issued. Yes, some of those major projects. That were issued in 2019, they've only just come up on occupancy or there's quite a lag, and I meant to touch on that earlier, is where the province in the housing targets. So our first year of housing targets, those permits would have been. In those projects would have been in the design planning with the developer and then the approval stage. And then the construction phase. For major projects. It's five years is not unusual. If you look at a telus. Or Campbell street style project. So there are definitely fluctuations. And market absorption. And. You'll see some developers. Obviously, they don't want to get stuck holding units. And they have that sort of lead time from design to occupancy. So there are fluctuations that occur naturally too. In the system. Okay.

Councillor Tyler Brown
Speaker identificationConfident
Yes

asked
less family? Single family homes being permitted each year like there's a general decline just because we're building less of
City staff answered
them. Thank you. Certainly. What the graph would indicate. And in terms of new construction throughout the city. This is just to give a visual representation of the distribution again of the single family homes as well as the multifamily so single family being the red dots and the multifamily being in blue. And just to show that nano continues to see many larger. Complex developments. The multifamily or mixed use developments throughout. The city near urban centers and alongkey corridors. For example, we saw some developments along metro drive or Labio area. And of course, this evening we heard one from upland strive and this trend. Really does continue to support the city plan vision for seeing people being able to live and in closer proximity to. Employment centers and services, as well as transit and recreational amenities. In terms of construction value by permit type. This graph just shows. Last year, over the last ten years, again, what the trends have been in relation to the ten year average, which I think is sitting approximately around 265,000,000. In there. So, of course, last year being at approximately $203,000,000. In construction value overall, and again, being able to see the distribution there. I think again, The trends that we've been speaking to already, with the economic factors impacting some of the larger developments, which typically are the ones that can be the driving factor of generating construction value. With a bit of a decline. We're going to see that, naturally, in the value by permit type. But just to highlight some of the top projects, again by value building permit. So. 47775 uplands. This is towards the north end, and it's right next to the. Origin. Seniors. Multifamily development and very close to our northern animal town center. That's a $15 million project for 48 unit apartment buildings, and then. More closer to downtown. Somewhat Central. At five two nine terminal Avenue north. This is a 69 unit. Multifamily development valued at 13.5 million. And at this street, this would be the VIU student housing development. This is a provincially. Funded project. And what you're seeing here is actually the value of the foundation permit, which was issued in 2024. $13 million. The building permit is actually 55 million. For that. They did a phased permitting process there, and so that will be in our 2025. Stats and then again just highlighting. An industrial project on East Wellington Road at 1861. For a warehouse. And office building at $10 million. In terms of our development approval stats. As we've said already, it fluctuates. From year to year and where we're at in the year, but just to show over the last five years. Rezoning applications that have been approved is up from last. We are close to the average of 13, so 13. Re applications approved. Is our five year average slightly down, but keeping in mind that there were some significant projects in there, including the sandstone rezoning application, which was approved in 2024, and that sets the stage for a number of other approvals to proceed, including many subdivisions, development permits that will come out of that. Development permits definitely seem to be on the rise. This is exciting for us. We're seeing a number of applications approved both last year and in stream already this year and through that, through developed permits, which are pretty much the precursor to a building permit. We have seen last year just over 1000 units approved through DPS. And also in terms of ones that are still in stream, not necessarily approved, but. Another just over 300 there. On the subdivision side again, as mentioned earlier. Seeing fewer fee simple subdivisions. And. The creation of fewer lots. However, there are a number of applications that are in stream currently. And including, as I mentioned, soundstone. So. There are some subdivision applications that don't necessarily create a number of lots right up front. But they are setting the stage for future development to occur in a community. And because we are dealing in many cases with infill subdosions that are not necessarily creating three or more new lots. We do see less Parkland dedication through that process as well, so that's. Why we're seeing lesson in 2024. And I'm happy to

Mayor Leonard Krog
Speaker identificationConfident
Yes

asked
already been asked. I'm just curious. The student building at VIU is only a $13 million project. That's the foundation.
City staff answered
That's the foundation only? Yes. And then the building for the rest of the project will be approximately $55 million.