Housing even less attainable.

Vernon Courier Jan 7

A jump of 23 per cent in the assessed value of homes in the Vernon area will likely not have an impact on the low-income housing situation, according to one city councillor. Coun. Juliette Cunningham, who also sits on the affordable-housing committee, said many people have already been squeezed out of the market and the increasing prices will just make an already out of reach home even less attainable. The latest assessment arrived at Vernon homes last week with significant jumps across the board. Cunningham said for many people, the price of a home was out of reach three or four years ago as wages have not kept pace with the ballooning home prices. At the next city council meeting on Jan. 14, city officials will be presented with the attainable housing strategy that Cunningham said will outline what needs to be done to help those at the lower end of the pay scale.

She said the first things that needs to change are development cost charges. The DCCs are the biggest barrier to providing affordable house because they are the same no matter the size of the dwelling. “I believe that‘s why we‘re behind other communities for multi-family housing,” she said, adding she will also pursue changes to DCCs that would encourage smaller and higher-density housing complexes. DCCs should also be altered if a development is closer to the city core because it would be less expensive to install the needed infrastructure and the city could also relax its parking requirements which would allow more room for housing units.
“People may not need two vehicles if they live in the core,” she said. The committee is also looking at secondary suites. Cunningham said the DCCs on a secondary suite are $14,000, and while there are many illegal suites in the city, lowering the DCCs could encourage more legal suites and thus more housing. The challenge is that, in the end, housing is still expensive. Cunningham said a multi-pronged approach is needed. “We know there are no silver bullets,” she said. Cunningham said if the city shows a commitment to tackling the problem, the province “would come to the table.” Habitat for Humanity, Rotary clubs and other groups have all shown interest in helping ease the housing crunch. With a tight market comes increased prices, and Cunningham said the “people who have been squeezed out will have to look at some sort of subsidy.” “There‘s a tremendous need. We hear it all the time.”
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DCC'S Must be PRIORITY of COUNCIL:
Don Quixote Note: Maybe the Council will finally make a concerted effort to look at DCC's. We hear that construction costs are rising at the rate of at least 1% per month for the last couple years and will continue in the future. This is the warning sounded if we don't built the new civic complex now. Well as I have been beating the drum for the last couple of years these same construction escalations have put our DCC rates at least 30-40% behind. Based on our 2006 DCC's charged of $3,474,279 (2005 $ 3,188,039) we have left almost $1,000,000 on the table each of the last two years and a whole bunch more in the future until this leakage is stopped. It is imperative that the top priority of this Council in the last year of their Mandate is a rate change to existing DCC's followed by a revision to the method of charging DCC's . (Sector DCC's, Secondary Suite DCC's, etc.) Most cities have reviewed their DCC's on a regular basis, (Kelowna has just finished their annual review) while Vernon has done little to address their out of date costing of existing projects that are DCC elgible, adjusted their method of charging to reflect present day reality and long term planning or protected the taxpayers from having to pay more than their share of infrastructure growth.