Leading Practices in Affordable Housing

Extracted text (beginning)

A Scan of Leading Practices 
in Affordable Housing 
 
Final Report
October 2017
Building Knowledge & Capacity for Affordable Housing 
in B.C. Small Communities

Acknowledgements
Building Knowledge and Capacity for Affordable Housing in B.C. Small Communities     © BC 2018
The Whistler Centre for Sustainability thanks BC Housing for the funding that allowed us to 
undertake this research project.

Building Knowledge & Capacity for Affordable 
Housing in BC Small Communities
3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction         4
Keys to Success 5
Municipal Tools 7
Partnerships - Land and Financing 17
Capacity Building for Organizations and the Community 27

Building Knowledge & Capacity for Affordable 
Housing in BC Small Communities
4
INTRODUCTION
Affordable housing remains a challenge for communities 
large and small throughout BC. Many small communities 
(under 20,000) have policies in their Official Community 
Plans (OCPs) supporting the development of affordable 
housing, yet implementation of these policies remains a 
challenge.
This scan of leading practices report is part of a larger 
project that seeks an understanding of the challenges 
and capacity needs for small communities to deliver 
affordable housing, as well as the current practices 
that result in successfully increasing affordable housing 
supply.
The first part of this project included a primary research 
scan of opinions held by people working across British 
Columbia to implement affordable housing in small 
communities. Using an online survey and targeted 
interviews, we captured the thoughts of non-profit 
housing organizations, housing consultants, developers 
and builders, financers, local government and crown 
corporations. 
The results of this outreach confirmed that there is a 
need for affordable low-moderate income (workforce) 
housing in smaller communities. Progress on the issue 
to date has been “fair” to “poor”, primarily due to 
the slow implementation of initiatives despite having 
housing plans in place.
The most significant affordable housing challenges 
centre on: 
•
The cost of development
•
The little profit associated with those costs
•
The challenge of funding or financing projects
The cost of development and a lack of land for 
affordable housing are two of the more prominent 
challenges in recent years.  
In order to resolve these challenges, survey participants 
and interviewees had several proposed solutions:
1.
Wor
k on more and different incentives to lower
development costs for both developers and non-
profit organizations to build affordable housing
2.
Increase access to funding (general funding,
go
vernment security for financing, etc.)
3.
Add flexibility to how funding is used, especially for
pre-development funding
4.Create a better understanding of de
velopment
economics
5.
Create new models of funding not yet used
6.Address the critical need to seek a values alignment
for all stakeholders engaged in affordable housing
projects and collaborations
Other m

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