Mayne Island Local Trust Committee regular meeting, October 28, 2024

[0:00:00] Voice 15: So, in case you can't announce,

[0:00:02] Voice 15: but don't say it for all of us, or for Steve, that looks

[0:00:06] Voice 15: like it would be,

[0:00:07] Voice 16: and

[0:00:09] Voice 15: that's what's happening, we don't take care of people, but we get the

[0:00:13] Voice 15: point, guys, that there's a power plant, there's a supply of power to, you

[0:00:21] Voice 5: know, we

[0:00:23] Voice 15: have to

[0:00:36] Voice 3: We're so ready to get started if you want to come on in, just do you go.

[0:00:52] Voice 8: this

[0:00:53] Voice 3: is so great thank you for all coming out on such a glorious beautiful fall day um just want

[0:01:01] Voice 3: to do acknowledge of his learning living and working before we start this community workshop

[0:01:09] Voice 3: job. So I want to thank the Tsimshatlan-speaking and Hul'q'u'minim-speaking people whose lands we

[0:01:20] Voice 3: are living, working, and making land use. It's very important to acknowledge that this is their

[0:01:26] Voice 3: territory. We want to do everything with in the right heart and minds and affecting the many

[0:01:35] Voice 3: many nations who've called these lands home on a memorial.

[0:01:41] Voice 3: I'm really just a bystander today.

[0:01:46] Voice 3: Your chair, Toby Elliott from Figueroa Island,

[0:01:49] Voice 3: very pleased to be with you,

[0:01:51] Voice 3: but I'm gonna turn it over to Planner and Nurse Chadwick,

[0:01:54] Voice 3: who's here to deliver the program for today.

[0:01:58] Voice 5: And yeah,

[0:02:00] Voice 17: and please eat some cookies and drink coffee.

[0:02:05] Voice 5: it's your reward for coming to join us today um thanks everybody for for coming and i especially

[0:02:12] Voice 5: want to thank uh we've got justine here from uh the crd and we've got david here from habitat

[0:02:17] Voice 5: for humanity so they've come all the way over um to join us today and um um we've got the um

[0:02:25] Voice 5: main island housing society representative here and and as well as we've got the teacherage

[0:02:31] Voice 5: represented too so um there's a lot of great housing thinkers in in the room today which

[0:02:38] Voice 5: is really exciting um and it's it's exciting um maine is an exciting place to be to be um

[0:02:47] Voice 5: talking about housing because within the islands trust maine is maine is a leader um because you

[0:02:53] Voice 5: have as a community been working on this for gosh 12 or five years four or five years now i think

[0:02:59] Voice 5: when I started at the Islands Trust shortly thereafter was when the, which was about five

[0:03:09] Voice 5: years ago, over five years ago, is when Green Island Housing, the LTC started into this sort

[0:03:16] Voice 5: of first phase of their housing project. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to sort of lay out

[0:03:20] Voice 5: a little bit of kind of the elements that make affordable housing and where the Islands Trust

[0:03:24] Voice 5: trust fits in and then our guests will speak a little bit to their their projects which are all

[0:03:30] Voice 5: very unique um and and sort of address different different elements of of kind of the housing

[0:03:36] Voice 5: picture so um i just have to figure out which oh there we go so um like i said it takes a village

[0:03:45] Voice 5: it takes a village to build housing there are so many different elements that contribute to

[0:03:49] Voice 5: making housing affordable and they include land use and that's that's essentially the LTC's role

[0:03:57] Voice 5: is to make the land use decisions my role is to do the work to make those make their decisions

[0:04:02] Voice 5: move forward um and provide the information they need to make their decisions um there's a finance

[0:04:09] Voice 5: piece and that can come in place and I'll just go I'll go through just you know some of the

[0:04:14] Voice 5: the places that all of these things come from, housing type, and then there's tenure, like

[0:04:20] Voice 5: ownership models and housing models, like how the properties are owned, cooperatives

[0:04:29] Voice 5: fall into that sort of thing.

[0:04:31] Voice 5: So I'm going to go, I'm just going to do a basic overview and go through these pieces

[0:04:35] Voice 5: just a little bit, and then we're going to move into, and I've got a bit of a summary

[0:04:41] Voice 5: of what's in the main island housing action plan and the work that we'll be doing to address some

[0:04:47] Voice 5: of the changes that the action plan speaks to with respect to the land use file and the official

[0:04:55] Voice 5: community plan. We've got, Justine's going to speak to the regional CRD's Southern Gulf Island

[0:05:04] Voice 5: Island Housing, of course, there's

[0:05:08] Voice 12: a holiday strategy

[0:05:10] Voice 5: for the Southern Gulf Islands, right?

[0:05:12] Voice 5: That's what it's called.

[0:05:13] Voice 5: Habitat for

[0:05:14] Voice 5: Humanities, they were here with us, was it last year or so?

[0:05:17] Voice 5: Some of you may have been there.

[0:05:19] Voice 5: They've got a really wonderful, affordable ownership model that David can speak to.

[0:05:26] Voice 5: And we've, over the last year or so, been in communications, and they're interested

[0:05:32] Voice 5: in looking at project opportunities on me.

[0:05:36] Voice 5: We've got a teacher, which I think is just an absolutely fabulous project, a great example of the community coming together to create housing.

[0:05:44] Voice 5: We've got the Maine Island Housing Society, who now has their housing navigator project and their new hire, and to speak to what that's all about.

[0:05:57] Voice 5: And then there's an opportunity for us to have some discussion.

[0:05:59] Voice 5: And there'll also be opportunity for questions throughout the presentations.

[0:06:06] Voice 5: So, the work of the Local Trust Committee, like I said, it's all about the land use and it's looking at land use by law and really it's focusing on increasing flexibility and options for housing.

[0:06:20] Voice 5: That's sort of where we really landed on and some work has already been done and I'll speak to that in a minute.

[0:06:27] Voice 5: um but basically looking at the at zoning um you know form use site that's supposed to size

[0:06:35] Voice 5: and you're a type that's possible through zoning um and and the kinds of um uh policies that need

[0:06:43] Voice 5: to be uh within the ocp to support the directions that uh that that that are that the zoning is

[0:06:51] Voice 5: going to um support and so in terms of um where we're at um main island has so they have gone

[0:07:02] Voice 5: through a first phase of housing where they uh decided to focus on on what we called flexible

[0:07:10] Voice 5: housing um and that's the model and that's the so at that point it was clear that the key interest

[0:07:17] Voice 5: in the community that the trustees wanted to focus on was to increase housing flexibility allow

[0:07:25] Voice 5: smaller lots to be able to have smaller units on their properties and to do that in a way that would

[0:07:33] Voice 5: have the least amount of impact environmental impact so we call that flex housing some of you

[0:07:40] Voice 5: may or may not be familiar with that that that allows for so that

[0:07:43] Voice 6: we and we have

[0:07:44] Voice 5: a pilot area

[0:07:45] Voice 5: AF, which we've identified based on water availability and some other factors that we

[0:07:52] Voice 5: were able to map. And so under flex housing, you're allowed to have in the pilot area,

[0:07:59] Voice 5: additional units within a maximum combined area of all the buildings. And I can speak to that

[0:08:06] Voice 5: we'll get questions. The action plan looks at expanding the flex housing like I said right now

[0:08:17] Voice 5: it's just within a a pilot area so it's expanding and at

[0:08:22] Voice 5: that time we're also looking at the smaller

[0:08:25] Voice 5: lots so lots under five acres and so that may be expanding. Expanding the permissions for

[0:08:34] Voice 5: residential use. So what that means is looking at other places

[0:08:37] Voice 5: where residential use isn't currently is it doesn't

[0:08:42] Voice 5: currently exist. So potentially, you know, in the community

[0:08:45] Voice 5: service area, in school, for the schools, we actually, the LTC

[0:08:53] Voice 5: did work on changing the zoning to allow folks to be ensure that

[0:09:00] Voice 5: being that the home was allowed to be there and that's another thing you can look at expect even

[0:09:06] Voice 5: in in that area allowing additional units to be a potential expanding secondary suites so

[0:09:13] Voice 5: right now

[0:09:13] Voice 5: secondary suites are permitted in all areas excluding water the water service areas

[0:09:18] Voice 5: that that was made some time ago so we need to revisit that because in fact in a lot of places

[0:09:24] Voice 5: that is the most practical way to go before this it's where water can be monitored and such

[0:09:30] Voice 5: permitting accessory dwelling units on smaller lots, so accessory dwelling units is just like a cottage, an additional unit, and right now there's a minimum size limit on lots that can have additional dwelling units.

[0:09:46] Voice 5: I spoke to that. Expanding permissions to rezone for non-market housing, so it may be allowing the OCP, ensuring that the OCP allows that type of rezoning.

[0:09:58] Voice 5: permitting rezoning for modular home villages, that is something that's been contemplated,

[0:10:05] Voice 5: and that would allow that flexibility.

[0:10:09] Voice 5: Increasing opportunities for non-profits, so this is one of the things that Maine is

[0:10:14] Voice 5: looking at, and Maine is probably going to sort of spearhead this in terms of the list

[0:10:23] Voice 5: generally is looking at subdivision regulations and facilitating the ability to subdivide if

[0:10:32] Voice 5: you're donating a piece of land. So there are a number of limitations on subdivision

[0:10:38] Voice 5: for various reasons, environmental protection, size of lots, etc. So that's something that

[0:10:44] Voice 5: we're looking at. And then a keen interest in minimizing environmental impact, so that's

[0:10:53] Voice 5: included things like cisterns for new builds, floor area maximum, we talked about that with

[0:10:59] Voice 5: the additional units in the combined floor area. And then we have

[0:11:03] Voice 3: been doing a lot of work at the

[0:11:04] Voice 5: out of the discussions to bring together all of the information that we have mapped around

[0:11:11] Voice 5: environmental sensitive areas, we've done a lot of work around water recharge and availability,

[0:11:17] Voice 5: we've done work on steep slopes, so we've got a lot of information that we've now brought

[0:11:23] Voice 5: together into a map.

[0:11:25] Voice 5: So we did a very, what would you say, rough, we took a very rough approach on Maine and

[0:11:33] Voice 5: that sort of spearheaded some conversation around us doing this in a much more formal

[0:11:39] Voice 5: way across the trust area, so again, Maine's leader there, and so we've now got that information.

[0:11:44] Voice 5: So when we look at expanding flexible housing and allowing more properties to be able to have additional units in places where the walls aren't going to run dry or you're not going to be in an environmentally sensitive area, we've got all that information that we can now use to contribute to the decision making.

[0:12:05] Voice 5: So this is great stuff that's going to be happening within the next year.

[0:12:11] Voice 5: year. And of course, you know, that's a very unique jurisdiction. And we have to work in

[0:12:21] Voice 5: collaboration, cooperation with other agencies, province, regional districts, health authority

[0:12:27] Voice 5: that are responsible for different aspects and elements around housing. So in regional

[0:12:34] Voice 5: districts um is where the crd issues building permits so they're responsible for looking at

[0:12:42] Voice 5: you know flying and the um uh electricity and the building code uh and all that sort of thing

[0:12:52] Voice 5: about building we've got the province um provinces are subdivision authorities or all subdivisions

[0:12:58] Voice 5: that are running through the province um and there's a variety of other uh other things that

[0:13:03] Voice 5: we have to consider we've got the islands um island health that regulates uh septic

[0:13:10] Voice 5: so there there are in in the uh main island housing action plan some advocacy options that

[0:13:18] Voice 5: do do recognize these other aspects that are related to housing and um what's cool is that

[0:13:28] Voice 5: that these advocacy actions are ending up

[0:13:30] Voice 5: in the action plans of other islands as well.

[0:13:33] Voice 5: So there are things that we're starting to,

[0:13:35] Voice 5: and those are ending up in a larger action plan,

[0:13:39] Voice 5: essentially for the island's trust.

[0:13:41] Voice 5: And so they include things like advocacy to the province

[0:13:45] Voice 5: around providing funding to water service providers

[0:13:49] Voice 5: to help them create this system.

[0:13:51] Voice 5: These are

[0:13:51] Voice 5: potentially very, very long conversations

[0:13:53] Voice 5: that take a long time, but we've captured the need

[0:13:56] Voice 5: and and and the interests um uh i was stressed uh islands health there's there's some um uh

[0:14:04] Voice 5: conversations around alternative waste disposal particularly um compact composting toilets for

[0:14:13] Voice 5: example that's a conversation we are actually right now engaging in some conversation with

[0:14:18] Voice 5: islands just around the water because um there's some strict there's some more stricter

[0:14:25] Voice 5: interpretation of their regulations around what kind of the need for a small water system

[0:14:36] Voice 5: on lots if you're having additional dwelling. So that is a stricter interpretation than

[0:14:43] Voice 5: what we understood before. So we're kind of digging into that a little bit more and we'll

[0:14:48] Voice 5: be able to provide you with the outcomes of those discussions that are happening right

[0:14:53] Voice 5: now basically at the meeting this week um and then they've got the crd with their implementation

[0:14:58] Voice 5: they have this southern gulf islands um housing strategy and uh there's a lot of opportunities

[0:15:06] Voice 5: for um for us to collaborate and coordinate around that and in fact we we spent the crd

[0:15:14] Voice 5: um was very instrumental in the application to the housing accelerator fund with the

[0:15:22] Voice 5: CHC twice, you know, we applied once, and I've just seen in her staff, I would say to the bulk

[0:15:29] Voice 5: of the work on that, and that work actually, I think, helped us to kind of really coalesce our

[0:15:36] Voice 5: planning, and even though we weren't successful, we have a really nice plan moving forward

[0:15:43] Voice 5: together, so it really facilitated that. We were able to reapply because we'd applied before,

[0:15:49] Voice 5: for, haven't heard, don't expect to hear anything, but it gets us in the, keeps us in the game,

[0:15:56] Voice 5: right, so they may ask, money might come up again, and let's say everybody who applied

[0:16:01] Voice 5: the second time gets to apply a third time, so you'll see where that goes. Yeah, so, you know,

[0:16:10] Voice 5: other elements, there's, like I said, there's the, there's the 10-year piece, there's rental,

[0:16:14] Voice 5: there's ownership, and there's different types of ownership structures, and all of these kinds

[0:16:18] Voice 5: of different structures everything from you know the freehold landowner owning their land outright

[0:16:25] Voice 5: to strata the sharing of of land either things but when when we look at um creating more flexibility

[0:16:32] Voice 5: of options on on the island um the decisions around um like strata for example isn't necessarily

[0:16:41] Voice 5: something that's supported right now so there's there's some uh decisions to be made um and then

[0:16:47] Voice 5: And there's other ownership models that go beyond land use, and those include things like cooperative housing where it's collective ownership to a membership in a co-op, for example.

[0:17:01] Voice 5: So there's these sorts of arrangements that can facilitate more affordable housing, but are not necessarily land use.

[0:17:08] Voice 5: But the land use element there is helping to support the number of units that a cooperative,

[0:17:16] Voice 5: for example, may want to have.

[0:17:20] Voice 5: And then in terms of housing models, I guess, there's public, there's straight up government

[0:17:29] Voice 5: funded and operated housing, there's a private housing and where this sort of enters the

[0:17:37] Voice 5: essentially affordable um realm of things is through secondary housing uh cottages

[0:17:43] Voice 5: and secondary suite renting and then there's uh you know straight up affordable housing is

[0:17:50] Voice 5: housing that's protected with that a housing agreement so that can be multi-unit that could

[0:17:55] Voice 5: you know we're looking into um we're looking into uh and i know cid is looking into

[0:18:02] Voice 5: to housing agreements for things like accessory dwelling

[0:18:06] Voice 5: units, a bit more challenging from an administrative point

[0:18:08] Voice 5: of view.

[0:18:10] Voice 5: But then we've got different housing types

[0:18:12] Voice 5: and across the islands, everything from multifamily

[0:18:16] Voice 5: to things that are captured by the building code

[0:18:24] Voice 5: and those that are not.

[0:18:27] Voice 5: And we see those.

[0:18:29] Voice 5: We see even on main island, we have

[0:18:32] Voice 5: permissions for people to live in their RVs year-round and you know that's a bit of a

[0:18:38] Voice 5: you know those RVs don't don't fall under bill account it's a bit of a tension between the

[0:18:43] Voice 5: CRV and and I lose trust with respect to that. There's a number of just finance models everything

[0:18:52] Voice 5: from private investments all the way to philanthropy right all the way through I think

[0:18:57] Voice 5: a teacher is just a fabulous example of kind of the crowdfunding community approach and that's

[0:19:06] Voice 5: really the end i just want to sort of set it up and then um you know i i've been joking around

[0:19:12] Voice 5: with toby now we should create a game where we have all of these different pieces and like you

[0:19:16] Voice 5: know we have the finance and piece and the lens pieces and how do they all sort of fit together

[0:19:20] Voice 5: so this is my opportunity to try and kind of experiment with that idea so i sort of tried

[0:19:26] Voice 5: to plug in our guests' approach into the different areas of land use, finance, tenure, and type.

[0:19:39] Voice 5: So any questions about what I've just presented to you?

[0:19:45] Voice 5: I think what we'll do is we'll pause after each presentation if you have specific questions.

[0:19:52] Voice 14: You mentioned that strata is a popular option right now.

[0:19:55] Voice 14: I don't know why.

[0:19:56] Voice 14: I'm with the island, so I don't know why.

[0:19:57] Voice 14: well

[0:19:57] Voice 5: it's not necessarily it's not currently supported by the uh by the land use bylaw but

[0:20:04] Voice 5: that's something that that that's we've got on like on our list to look at there's different

[0:20:12] Voice 12: kinds of strata so too right like you can you can create a bare land strata by subdivision where

[0:20:17] Voice 12: your lots are strata lots and then just like a in the city you have a condominium um that's a

[0:20:25] Voice 12: a building strata where the individual units in the condo are owned by individuals but then like

[0:20:32] Voice 12: the elevator and the lobby are managed property

[0:20:34] Voice 14: and then common property

[0:20:36] Voice 12: a

[0:20:36] Voice 14: bare

[0:20:38] Voice 12: land strata is currently allowed

[0:20:40] Voice 12: the driveway is usually the common property but you can also create a building strata

[0:20:48] Voice 12: on a rural property where you're subdividing the footprint of the building away from the land

[0:20:53] Voice 12: And then the land around is considered limited common property and that piece is a bit edgy and not necessarily allowed

[0:21:02] Voice 12: under zoning under the requirements around

[0:21:05] Voice 12: Accessory dwelling units usually they don't give it the strata titling of an accessory dwelling unit

[0:21:10] Voice 12: But it's also an opportunity for affordable home ownership. So that's the piece to discuss

[0:21:17] Voice 12: That's right.

[0:21:17] Voice 12: That's great. Thanks for

[0:21:18] Voice 5: The barrel and strata. Yes

[0:21:22] Voice 6: Can you clarify that then? So if I'm a homeowner of a single-family home and I want to have

[0:21:29] Voice 6: two cottages and sell them, I can turn my private residential lot into a strata?

[0:21:36] Voice 12: It would be considered a strata conversion.

[0:21:38] Voice 12: Okay.

[0:21:39] Voice 6: And yes.

[0:21:40] Voice 12: So we could enable that.

[0:21:41] Voice 8: You could enable that. Yes.

[0:21:43] Voice 8: Okay. So people could share

[0:21:45] Voice 8: a piece of land.

[0:21:47] Voice 8: exactly and then and then you're

[0:21:48] Voice 12: freeing the land costs from the bill the cost of the building

[0:21:52] Voice 12: itself right and so that reduces the price yeah

[0:21:54] Voice 5: yeah so it's on our list okay we

[0:21:59] Voice 14: didn't do that

[0:21:59] Voice 5: yeah uh

[0:22:02] Voice 14: you mentioned um square footage of uh buildings when you're considering that as

[0:22:09] Voice 14: something for islands trust to focus on in zoning is that in addition to a number of

[0:22:15] Voice 14: buildings or as a alternative that

[0:22:18] Voice 5: could also be looked at in addition to um and i think we

[0:22:24] Voice 5: have it on the list we'll go through the list of things i mean i know it's something like for

[0:22:28] Voice 5: example on like denman island is like we just have to cut the size of these homes right so

[0:22:33] Voice 5: they're very they're moving very much in that direction we still need we haven't had that

[0:22:38] Voice 5: conversation on maine yet um but it certainly is within the realm of things that could be looked

[0:22:46] Voice 9: That kind of is what our flex housing is about. It reduced the footprint considerably in exchange for more density.

[0:22:52] Voice 5: That's right. Yeah, that's the combined, but we haven't talked about like big houses yet.

[0:22:58] Voice 5: How

[0:22:58] Voice 15: much uptake have you had on the flex housing?

[0:23:01] Voice 5: So I don't know that we necessarily have had actual building permits yet for the flex housing,

[0:23:08] Voice 5: But I have talked to a number of folks on the island about it that are very interested and you know, it's really about financing

[0:23:20] Voice 5: Financing in the cases that I the cases that the examples that I engaged with it. They're just waiting to you know to

[0:23:29] Voice 15: It's perhaps

[0:23:31] Voice 15: Simplifying the building process the way it used to be

[0:23:35] Voice 15: an option

[0:23:35] Voice 15: and I don't mean this

[0:23:38] Voice 15: I mean you know if I'm going to build

[0:23:40] Voice 15: an economy I can probably do one on my

[0:23:42] Voice 15: property

[0:23:44] Voice 15: but why would I

[0:23:45] Voice 15: not just financially but

[0:23:48] Voice 15: how complicated it is

[0:23:50] Voice 15: to initiate

[0:23:52] Voice 15: a new project

[0:23:54] Voice 15: and you know when I compare

[0:23:56] Voice 15: back to the 90s

[0:23:58] Voice 15: pre 2005

[0:24:01] Voice 15: seismic HPO

[0:24:02] Voice 15: uh installation levels that are becoming crazy we're talking cottages here you can even do

[0:24:08] Voice 15: two if you're doing a four wall little cottage with a common six and twelve inch roof those

[0:24:15] Voice 15: things can go up in a weekend administration costs take forever and it's really there's a lot of

[0:24:21] Voice 15: pushback on that why would we want to why do we even want to entertain and then you've got to do

[0:24:27] Voice 15: it for under market uh value they've got to rent it for under market for at least five years or

[0:24:33] Voice 15: something like that to

[0:24:34] Voice 5: get the the provincial i

[0:24:36] Voice 15: understand that yeah yeah it's interesting in that

[0:24:39] Voice 15: in that five-year uh program the provincial government's going to be making or the

[0:24:45] Voice 15: governments of the world are going to be making income tax on that income that me as a as an

[0:24:52] Voice 15: owner is paying because i've got this income you know so there's there's there's a lot of

[0:24:57] Voice 15: barriers there there are to do just a simple cabin like you know when you look at you uh

[0:25:04] Voice 15: on the rest of canada like my wife grew up in edmonton uh five five people in their house

[0:25:11] Voice 15: seven you know with you know the parents it goes and there was a star weekly did a an article years

[0:25:17] Voice 15: ago i don't know if anybody remembers the star weekly but about 40 from 40 it was 40 days below

[0:25:23] Voice 15: low 20 degrees Celsius, and they were living in a house that was the normal kind of house,

[0:25:31] Voice 15: two by four walls, R12 insulation, if, maybe a little bit in the ceiling, but they all

[0:25:37] Voice 15: lived in Siobhan.

[0:25:38] Voice 15: Could we not scale down this kind of stuff?

[0:25:42] Voice 15: If I'm going to build a cottage to STEP program criteria, forget it.

[0:25:47] Voice 15: I'm not going to build a little cottage with two by eight walls and triple the placement

[0:25:51] Voice 15: house.

[0:25:51] Voice 15: This is ridiculous.

[0:25:52] Voice 15: And I think that's one of the big problems with uptake of flex housing.

[0:25:55] Voice 15: Flex housing, I think it's a great idea, but for private individuals to do it?

[0:26:01] Voice 14: So in opening up a building permit, you'd be opening up a can of worms, basically.

[0:26:05] Voice 15: Well, you're...

[0:26:06] Voice 14: And if you're not bringing in the base house...

[0:26:10] Voice 15: Well, I'm not talking about the base house.

[0:26:12] Voice 15: I'm talking about, you know, you're going to...

[0:26:14] Voice 15: I have no problem with, you know, market housing and all this stuff.

[0:26:17] Voice 15: Sure, do whatever you want.

[0:26:18] Voice 15: but if you want to really do affordable housing you've got to fall back some of these some of

[0:26:25] Voice 15: these uh the criterias that we're having to make hpo why would i want to make a course with hpo

[0:26:31] Voice 15: to become a you know temporary license maybe to build a cottage yeah

[0:26:36] Voice 15: that's a requirement

[0:26:37] Voice 15: well

[0:26:38] Voice 2: apparently you have to

[0:26:39] Voice 15: take a building permit you've got to actually gotta

[0:26:41] Voice 15: do the hbo yes

[0:26:44] Voice 14: if i want to put a tiny home or a cottage on the back of my property and you've got

[0:26:48] Voice 14: going to do the HBO.

[0:26:49] Voice 6: Only if you want to build it yourself. Well,

[0:26:51] Voice 15: no, for sure. I'm

[0:26:53] Voice 15: talking

[0:26:54] Voice 15: sweat equity. Somebody like me,

[0:26:56] Voice 6: for

[0:26:56] Voice 15: sure I'm going to build it myself. I've been in the building

[0:26:59] Voice 15: industry for 40 years. Why would I not want to do it myself? My neighbor

[0:27:03] Voice 14: Joe built it.

[0:27:06] Voice 15: He would have to be a licensed builder. Can't

[0:27:08] Voice 14: just be a dude with a hammer.

[0:27:09] Voice 15: Can't be a dude

[0:27:10] Voice 15: with a hammer anymore. I mean, and there was the majority of the houses that were built on

[0:27:15] Voice 15: on main island that we all live in we're under that criteria yeah you know do you really want

[0:27:22] Voice 15: to get affordable housing not better than you know what that's some of the criteria we have

[0:27:26] Voice 15: to meet to make to build a small 500 square foot bunch so one of

[0:27:30] Voice 6: the advantages that i see about

[0:27:32] Voice 6: the flexible housing opportunity is for more than one family unit to share the land to have more

[0:27:41] Voice 6: than one dwelling on that property and and so you can have i mean you can have your your

[0:27:51] Voice 6: your nuclear family your extended family there or it can be friends who come and they want to share

[0:27:57] Voice 6: that property that allows for some affordable housing yeah

[0:28:03] Voice 15: you got to build it

[0:28:04] Voice 5: you got to build

[0:28:05] Voice 5: it yeah yeah we

[0:28:06] Voice 15: all understand what's like you know like putting the cottage on the property

[0:28:09] Voice 15: whatever you use it for certainly get that my point is there's been no uptake because of the

[0:28:15] Voice 15: not just the financing but the rigmarole you gotta dance to to get to that stage

[0:28:21] Voice 5: yeah totally and

[0:28:22] Voice 5: well and that's it and that's why sort of like kind of had these sort of segments there's the

[0:28:27] Voice 5: different roles and responsibilities right so ours is the land use piece so we can say yeah you can

[0:28:33] Voice 5: build all the units however many units right and then the other yellow other element is what you're

[0:28:38] Voice 5: speaking to and there there are people in all of these digging into all of those different pieces

[0:28:44] Voice 5: and it's you know it's

[0:28:46] Voice 15: pretty obvious why how much more digging do we got to do yeah no yeah

[0:28:49] Voice 5: exactly and i mean uh this is probably a nice segue to the cr you are next yeah

[0:28:57] Voice 5: that's your building code and all those sorts of things right and um um you know explore you know

[0:29:02] Voice 5: we were having a good conversation about tiny homes on the on the ferry for example and um

[0:29:08] Voice 5: toby's been doing some substantial work

[0:29:11] Voice 3: the cost sharing benefit about

[0:29:13] Voice 5: that as well so there's

[0:29:15] Voice 5: certainly we we definitely um we hear you absolutely and understand that piece as well and

[0:29:20] Voice 5: all of these conversations we have are about trying to explore you know how can we how can

[0:29:27] Voice 5: we do it most affordably within the framework we currently exist and what are the what are

[0:29:31] Voice 5: those challenges, and then there's other work to be done to address that piece, right?

[0:29:36] Voice 5: Thank you.

[0:29:38] Voice 5: Perfect segue.

[0:29:47] Voice 12: I'm not going to be able to solve your question.

[0:29:51] Voice 12: So, Norris has introduced me.

[0:29:54] Voice 12: My name is Justine Stark.

[0:29:55] Voice 12: I work as the Manager of Service Delivery for the Southern Gulf Islands and Lake Coral area.

[0:30:00] Voice 12: So that's the electoral area within the CRD, who your electoral area director is Paul Brent, and it includes not only Main Island, but Tender Island, Saturn Island, Galliano, and both Tenders.

[0:30:12] Voice 12: And so within the CRD, we are one electoral area among a region that includes the 13 municipalities of the Greater Victoria region.

[0:30:22] Voice 12: And then there's another electoral area called the Juan de Fuca, which is Port Renfrew and East Souk and that kind of Western communities out there.

[0:30:32] Voice 12: And then we've got Salt Spring Island, which is its own electoral area as well.

[0:30:36] Voice 12: So that's what the CRD is.

[0:30:37] Voice 12: um and um i uh we've been working um starting actually with the leadership of the community

[0:30:47] Voice 12: economic sustainability commission which is your economic development service for the southern

[0:30:52] Voice 12: gulf islands um it was identified that uh the need for affordable housing is one of the biggest

[0:30:58] Voice 12: obstacles to the um economic um sort of future of the islands and so um for the last few years

[0:31:08] Voice 12: we worked with this commission and we developed a housing strategy for the southern gulf islands

[0:31:12] Voice 12: electoral area and this acknowledges that you know in our small rural communities there is a

[0:31:18] Voice 12: shortage shortage of housing for the full diversity of the population and of the demographic

[0:31:25] Voice 12: makeup of the community and if we want to retain a diverse community we need to also have a diverse

[0:31:31] Voice 12: housing stock um but the governance is very complicated especially in the islands trust

[0:31:37] Voice 12: area where you have islands trust doing zoning and you have the crd administering the bc building

[0:31:43] Voice 12: code on behalf of the province which actually makes all the rules and the legislation um and

[0:31:48] Voice 12: then you've got island health approving septic systems and you've got a very multi-jurisdictional

[0:31:53] Voice 12: context so it's complicated people are like why bother um and um it's also more expensive to

[0:32:01] Voice 12: build on the islands if you're bringing your trades from off island if you're bringing your

[0:32:04] Voice 12: materials from off island um when you're doing development and you don't have a community water

[0:32:11] Voice 12: system or a community sewer system to plug into you're developing that infrastructure on site on

[0:32:16] Voice 12: your own property that adds cost and complexity um so anyways it's hard on the island and um

[0:32:24] Voice 12: And that's kind of what the Southern Gulf Islands housing strategy says. It says that we need to support the nonprofit sector. Those are the folks who are actually trying to build what I call capital A affordable housing, which is affordable housing that's subsidized with government, other government funding, and is rented with rent caps, is controlled by a housing agreement,

[0:32:48] Voice 12: and is providing affordable housing and perpetuity tied to the incomes of the residents who live there.

[0:32:59] Voice 12: And, yeah, we work together.

[0:33:02] Voice 12: Islands Trust has come out with this toolkit, which gives local trust committees different ways to look at the zoning

[0:33:07] Voice 12: to enable better uptake, enable a greater diversity of housing stock in the community through zoning.

[0:33:14] Voice 12: That's a big piece of it.

[0:33:16] Voice 12: um oh so there there it is um the uh main sort of main uh one of the main goals of the southern

[0:33:30] Voice 12: gulf islands housing strategy was to get the to get the capital regional district to create a

[0:33:35] Voice 12: rural housing program so not just a strategy but a program because regional districts deliver

[0:33:41] Voice 12: That's sort of their main job. And there is a housing department at the CRD. There's even a wholly owned housing corporation at the CRD. But they're very much in the business of trying to own, manage and operate housing in the busy urban centers where you can get densities at scales of 200 units.

[0:34:04] Voice 12: um that's kind of uh easier to make happen and very much harder to figure out how to deliver

[0:34:13] Voice 12: affordable housing in our weird little communities where maybe the business case isn't there and the

[0:34:17] Voice 12: economy of scale isn't there and everything needs to be like special um and so major goal get the

[0:34:25] Voice 12: crd to create a rural housing program we've done that and i'm going to tell you about that in a

[0:34:29] Voice 12: second um it also talks a lot about this whole government approach and really kind of brings

[0:34:35] Voice 12: that as a focus that because we're in this multi-jurisdictional environment we need to

[0:34:39] Voice 12: work together across the different jurisdictions that all have a different piece of the pie um but

[0:34:44] Voice 12: like um individually can really only work on one corner um so we need to work together to bring a

[0:34:51] Voice 12: whole government approach to solutions um and that involves you know basically what it is is a very

[0:34:58] Voice 12: specific list of advocacy direction to the provincial government to say like these are

[0:35:04] Voice 12: the obstacles to us achieving affordable housing hpo is a major obstacle i hear about that a lot

[0:35:09] Voice 12: um i you know we we all experience it when we want to put the sweat equity into our properties

[0:35:14] Voice 12: i have a property on salt spring so like i i also live this um and um you know there's the

[0:35:23] Voice 12: building code is another one right the the step code is great because it reaches it helps us as

[0:35:28] Voice 12: our regional district achieve and as a province achieve our climate change

[0:35:32] Voice 12: objectives with our energy efficient buildings. Buildings are huge emitters of

[0:35:37] Voice 12: greenhouse gas emissions but it drives the cost up and there's a there's like a

[0:35:41] Voice 12: big a big discrepancy between our need for affordable housing and the cost of

[0:35:46] Voice 12: housing that's driven up through the high standards in the building code.

[0:35:50] Voice 12: These are not all solvable without working together and without elevating

[0:35:56] Voice 12: the interests of small rural communities provincially in the in the way the province

[0:36:01] Voice 12: delivers affordable housing um so like i said um the the major goal of the housing strategy for

[0:36:10] Voice 12: the southern gulf islands was to get the crd to have its own program looking at how its rural

[0:36:15] Voice 12: communities could also benefit from the regional housing division at the cod and so um we've got

[0:36:22] Voice 12: a pilot project for 2025 and 2026 which is looking at salt spring and southern gulf islands so the

[0:36:31] Voice 12: two electoral areas that are within islands trust and it's piloting um and sort of this this

[0:36:38] Voice 12: different approach and it's not as much it's not a housing supply program it doesn't have a

[0:36:44] Voice 12: big line of sight to like the millions and millions and millions of dollars needed to build

[0:36:50] Voice 12: one affordable housing project so it's not a housing supply program it's not going to help

[0:36:54] Voice 12: main island housing society with its capital uh funding that's needed to make that project

[0:36:59] Voice 12: um happen but it's going to um through a partnership with um the southern gulf islands

[0:37:05] Voice 12: tourism partnership we've got funding for a coordinator so you'll have somebody to support

[0:37:09] Voice 12: groups um in trying to understand how to deliver housing how to um navigate all the different

[0:37:16] Voice 12: government agencies you'll have someone to administer the major deliverables of the program

[0:37:25] Voice 12: and it is a place where we can develop a very strategic and I think it needs to be a specific

[0:37:33] Voice 12: advocacy strategy that the local trust committees can all sign on to and that the CRD board can sign

[0:37:42] Voice 12: on to um where we're listing out the things the province needs to change and other legislation

[0:37:47] Voice 12: in order to support us in in helping um our communities thrive um so service because you

[0:37:59] Voice 12: know the regional district delivers services it's not just um a strategy it's not just about

[0:38:03] Voice 12: having a coordinator though um that's going to be very important um it's uh well and actually

[0:38:09] Voice 12: So this is still a pending budget decision by the CRD board.

[0:38:13] Voice 12: Wednesday, we expect to get preliminary budget approval for 2025,

[0:38:19] Voice 12: in which case we've got money earmarked to give incentives

[0:38:22] Voice 12: for folks building accessory dwelling units on their property

[0:38:26] Voice 12: in exchange for some kind of affordable housing commitment.

[0:38:31] Voice 12: That's what we're calling the ADU incentive program.

[0:38:35] Voice 12: It's pretty much, we've been working on this for years,

[0:38:38] Voice 12: And then meanwhile, the province was faster and they came out with their secondary suites incentive program, where this what the province is doing is it's offering homeowners $40,000 as an equity contribution to building out an accessory dwelling unit like a cottage or a secondary suite.

[0:38:55] Voice 12: and then the province's deal is we'll give you a forgivable loan and you'll register a mortgage

[0:39:02] Voice 12: on title of your property and every year you'll get 20 of that loan forgiven when you can

[0:39:07] Voice 12: demonstrate that the person who you're renting the house to meets the income requirements of

[0:39:14] Voice 12: the program and that the rent you're charging doesn't exceed 30 of that income so there's that's

[0:39:21] Voice 12: That's the affordability side.

[0:39:23] Voice 12: That's the deal for the province.

[0:39:25] Voice 12: So the CRD is looking at a program where we're piggybacking on that to enable stacking so that folks could register for the provincial program and then also register for the CRD's program.

[0:39:37] Voice 12: And then you get maybe $80,000.

[0:39:40] Voice 12: We're still, our program's still under design.

[0:39:42] Voice 12: We've got a survey out right now asking homeowners to give us feedback about the kinds of criteria that would motivate them to motivate you to build that unit on your property and rent it to a community member.

[0:40:00] Voice 12: I'm, you know, there's a lot of devil in the details.

[0:40:04] Voice 12: And if you look closely at the provincial program, the income requirements, the rental rates that they would require for the islands is actually market rent because they're looking for our area.

[0:40:17] Voice 12: They're looking at the greater Victoria incomes because it was easier for them than to try and tailor it for each small community.

[0:40:24] Voice 12: So we know we know the incomes on the islands are about 80% of the incomes of the rest of the CRD. And we know that the rents are about 8% of the rents in the city. I mean, we do have do have very variability, of course, but like on average.

[0:40:46] Voice 12: So, suffice to say, we're looking, we're really interested in the feedback that you give to the survey.

[0:40:53] Voice 12: And we're still designing the criteria because we want it to reflect what's going to be needed and where there's going to be uptake in the community.

[0:41:00] Voice 12: That's what the Accessory Dwelling Unit Incentive Program is.

[0:41:03] Voice 12: is um we're also um going to be earmarking funding for um the non-profit housing sector to help

[0:41:10] Voice 12: groups like the main island housing society um with some of their pre-development funding and

[0:41:15] Voice 12: their infrastructure costs so we know it's more expensive to build on the islands to get through

[0:41:20] Voice 12: an island stress zoning process we've got a lot of soft costs to make sure that there's um you know

[0:41:26] Voice 12: no impacts to the environment and that you're um you know or if you're near an archaeological site

[0:41:31] Voice 12: we need to do an archaeological study that the professional studies add up and so we we know that

[0:41:36] Voice 12: that's even before a group gets to the building permit phase they have to you know spend hundreds

[0:41:42] Voice 12: of thousands of dollars on professional reports to get through the zoning process so we want to

[0:41:46] Voice 12: help that we want to help it make easier make it easier for folks to um improve their pro forma so

[0:41:53] Voice 12: that the equity contribution they have to give as a group to to achieve the other the mega mega

[0:42:00] Voice 12: mega levels of funding they'll need to get through provincial and federal housing programs

[0:42:04] Voice 12: um they need their pro forma to be more um attractive and so we can't solve it but we

[0:42:10] Voice 12: can give a little bit hopefully um and then this coordination information navigation advocacy piece

[0:42:17] Voice 12: is um can't be understated like one of i think these two programs will be okay but the major

[0:42:22] Voice 12: success i think of having the pilot rural housing program is getting the crd to deliver uh housing

[0:42:30] Voice 12: program that would meet the needs in our communities which are very different than

[0:42:33] Voice 12: in the big cities and having somebody there to help answer questions um to help a non-profit

[0:42:39] Voice 12: group who might be you know have like a lot like been offered a piece of land and be like

[0:42:44] Voice 12: here's a free piece of land we want to build affordable housing um we want people to be very

[0:42:49] Voice 12: realistic about what it takes and um and so we'll have someone sort of like to help walk through the

[0:42:55] Voice 12: the development process and and what it takes and so you know there's a lot of groups in the

[0:43:01] Voice 12: southern gulf islands that are trying to work together to deliver affordable housing and we're

[0:43:06] Voice 12: talking to everybody um and um um i feel like i've talked a lot so i'm gonna try and make it

[0:43:17] Voice 12: quick but i put this slide up here because especially when i'm working with local trust

[0:43:22] Voice 12: committees um and with the on salt spring there's this new crd um commission called the local

[0:43:29] Voice 12: communities commission and everyone's got a little bit of responsibility for some piece of the whole

[0:43:34] Voice 12: thing that um is a solution to housing and so i call this the governance relay because you know

[0:43:40] Voice 12: each of us as organizations can go further and faster if we're working squarely within our own

[0:43:47] Voice 12: authorities we're going to ultimately inevitably reach the limit of that authority whether it be

[0:43:52] Voice 12: legislative authority or the responsibility of of like maybe the terms of a non-profit society

[0:43:58] Voice 12: and at that point you need to pass that baton over to your partner who's going

[0:44:02] Voice 12: to take that

[0:44:03] Voice 12: further and so not only do we need to understand our own limits and like do it do everything we

[0:44:10] Voice 12: can within them but then we need to also have those partnerships created so that there's someone

[0:44:15] Voice 12: to pass the baton to um and so you know i've been doing a bit of a dog and pony show for the local

[0:44:21] Voice 12: trust committees talking about the rural housing program and a big message i have when it comes to

[0:44:26] Voice 12: land use planning is do your land use planning like we need it we need what main island has done

[0:44:30] Voice 12: with the flexible housing is really pioneering and is a huge inspiration to me and i talk about it

[0:44:35] Voice 12: when i talk to the other local trust committees but would also help is if all of island's trust

[0:44:40] Voice 12: local trust areas had land use bylaws with cottages with the same minimum floor area for

[0:44:49] Voice 12: cottages and maybe make it a little bit bigger so that you can house you have two bedrooms like a

[0:44:54] Voice 12: two-bedroom cottage will house a family and if all the islands trust area had the same floor area

[0:44:59] Voice 12: limit then you have an economy of scale that the market might respond to with a modular prefab

[0:45:05] Voice 12: product that they can deliver across the islands trust area and then you can bring that cost to

[0:45:10] Voice 12: build down and so this is one of my messages for islands trust lately it's like let's try

[0:45:16] Voice 12: and standardize the four advantages um yeah there's lots of other things that i have to

[0:45:23] Voice 12: say to local trust committees like about housing agreements but we're going to move on

[0:45:29] Voice 12: and uh just you know what's our goal we want our islands to be vibrant and diverse

[0:45:33] Voice 12: um we know that secure housing breaks the poverty cycle um and unless people um you participate in

[0:45:41] Voice 12: the community as we have the the uh like a wave of volunteers that make these communities run

[0:45:47] Voice 12: are reaching that that limit you know where they need to step down and pass their baton and and we

[0:45:53] Voice 12: need our young people to have space in their lives to take it on um and it's all about islanders

[0:45:59] Voice 12: providing housing for islanders because there's actually like very little um outside um outside

[0:46:07] Voice 12: groups are going to be able to come in and solve it for us like we have and that's what islanders

[0:46:12] Voice 12: are so good at right and so that means the teachers i'm also super inspired about the

[0:46:16] Voice 12: teachers but um with the the accessory dwelling unit incentive program that's also a piece of it

[0:46:22] Voice 12: it's a it's you know like there's social stigma associated with offering a rental housing

[0:46:28] Voice 12: on your property and we know when the costs are so high like what like i think brian your point

[0:46:34] Voice 12: is very well taken and it's what we're trying to do is design is design it so that we're we're

[0:46:39] Voice 12: supporting people and making that decision to offer a rental on their property and but also

[0:46:45] Voice 12: we're keeping the cost barriers down and removing what other obstacles we can you know that are

[0:46:51] Voice 12: within our power so that's it um i think that's the end of my presentation yeah if you have any

[0:46:57] Voice 12: any questions regarding

[0:47:02] Voice 15: the step program it was here he's decision to buy into

[0:47:11] Voice 15: that with it but at first was introduced that was up to the municipalities and

[0:47:16] Voice 15: regional districts to whether they want to buy into that program or not my

[0:47:20] Voice 15: record certainly correct me if I'm wrong but sure he bought into it well is there

[0:47:25] Voice 15: there any chance of who if we're going to be doing flex uh flex housing be eliminated from that

[0:47:32] Voice 15: program so

[0:47:33] Voice 12: um you're you're partially right it was volunteer um it was it was a volunteer program

[0:47:39] Voice 12: for a couple years and then the province came down and gave everybody a deadline so it was

[0:47:45] Voice 12: no longer volunteer and crd actually to their credit held off until they were forced and so

[0:47:50] Voice 12: So just last year, though, they brought it up.

[0:47:52] Voice 16: And

[0:47:53] Voice 12: so I don't know, I like this is a conversation with the with the province, because I don't

[0:48:00] Voice 12: I don't know.

[0:48:03] Voice 12: You know, there was a point in time, and some of you might remember this, where the CRD

[0:48:06] Voice 12: offered like a bit of what was it called?

[0:48:08] Voice 12: It was like almost like a pilot program where you could have like just build to the minimum

[0:48:15] Voice 12: of the code, just the health and safety requirements of the code.

[0:48:18] Voice 12: and um and even less than part because part nine will now yeah yeah but um

[0:48:26] Voice 12: yeah and and they did that for a while and it was back in the days when robert guterres was

[0:48:31] Voice 12: the chief building inspector he says oh well nobody took advantage of it because they realized

[0:48:36] Voice 12: they needed to take the risk um of the liability risk and the insurers wouldn't insure it and so

[0:48:42] Voice 12: So nobody went that route and took advantage of this easier path of building permit.

[0:48:49] Voice 12: This was kind of before my time, so it's like a myth at this point.

[0:48:52] Voice 12: But I do recall asking Robert about it before he retired, and he said, yeah, well, nobody took it on because of the liability.

[0:49:00] Voice 12: So there's so many factors that go into the decision-making, right?

[0:49:03] Voice 12: Right. And but yeah, I we I think that there needs to be some kind of building code solution, like an affordable building code.

[0:49:15] Voice 12: And I know it's come up at UBCM. I think there's people at the province talking about it.

[0:49:20] Voice 12: I don't know. I also think that, you know, you've got your Ministry of Housing and then you've got your whatever division the building code people are in.

[0:49:29] Voice 12: but they're not the same and and they're very driven by you know um risk so what's happening

[0:49:35] Voice 15: now is anybody doing any of this whether we're renovating or existing shops or cottages or

[0:49:42] Voice 15: whatever we're basically doing it not on tuesdays or thursdays whenever christmas

[0:49:47] Voice 15: that's really the reality what's going on there

[0:49:50] Voice 15: so from an insurance perspective

[0:49:52] Voice 15: it's not really trying

[0:49:53] Voice 14: but but

[0:49:56] Voice 15: this is what i said what's going on like you know and it's and

[0:50:01] Voice 15: it's answering some of the affordable affordability questions because there's like illegal suites in

[0:50:06] Voice 15: in vancouver they're kind of like trying to blind eye to it but yeah

[0:50:10] Voice 12: it's it's really unfortunate

[0:50:11] Voice 12: that that's the informal housing stock and it's really unfortunate that that's you know what

[0:50:17] Voice 12: ends up being our most affordable housing in the

[0:50:20] Voice 15: city the idea of a

[0:50:21] Voice 15: standardized

[0:50:27] because we have a different we're not focusing on we don't really need you

[0:50:32] know our

[0:50:33] Voice 15: 40 walls you can actually live in the 70s house with no insulation and

[0:50:40] Voice 15: and two-by-four walls and inside that could be cold.

[0:50:44] Voice 15: It could be a lot of wood and firewood.

[0:50:45] Voice 11: Yeah.

[0:50:46] Voice 15: Wood stove.

[0:50:47] Voice 15: But we could do quite well with a good enough design

[0:50:53] Voice 15: that could still be tight, well-designed,

[0:50:56] Voice 15: and environmentally friendly for this climate.

[0:51:02] Voice 15: And the building code, the step code, is designed for little problems.

[0:51:05] Voice 15: Exactly.

[0:51:06] Voice 15: It's too much for

[0:51:08] Voice 10: this environment, more than it is for the environment.

[0:51:11] Voice 10: And it

[0:51:11] Voice 10: substantially increases the cost.

[0:51:14] Voice 15: So if we could push to get a standardized spot,

[0:51:18] Voice 15: 1200 square feet bedroom in

[0:51:20] Voice 8: a simple design,

[0:51:23] Voice 15: then we could have something that maybe could come in more like $250 a square foot

[0:51:28] Voice 15: instead of $350 or $400 a square foot,

[0:51:31] Voice 15: which is just, when you do the economics as a potential builder of a suite,

[0:51:37] Voice 15: it's ridiculous.

[0:51:38] Voice 16: is

[0:51:39] Voice 15: you know you you're going to spend

[0:51:40] Voice 10: four hundred thousand dollars before you

[0:51:42] Voice 15: about

[0:51:43] Voice 10: a septic in the well and how are you going

[0:51:47] Voice 16: to rent that or anything close

[0:51:48] Voice 16: yeah i

[0:51:49] Voice 12: know it's bonkers and it's it's real i am i love your idea of like actually the code having

[0:51:56] Voice 12: like a a cottage like a different a different standard for cottages it could also apply to

[0:52:02] Voice 12: the laneway houses in the cities too like i think it could be broadly applicable um the one thing

[0:52:07] Voice 12: about that like what i'm saying about if all the if the zoning had like the standard size of

[0:52:13] Voice 12: uh floor area and then you could have the like um the the modular companies and the prefab companies

[0:52:20] Voice 12: design a unit that would um that could be deployed across um the islands then you're not having to

[0:52:27] Voice 12: deal with the building code because that product would be pre-engineered to get to get you to

[0:52:33] Voice 12: occupancy um so you don't have to deal with the hpo you don't have to deal with being a home

[0:52:37] Voice 12: builder like yeah your sweat equity can be used to do the finishing because i probably wouldn't

[0:52:41] Voice 12: include the finishing anyways but um you know it would be that that's the idea because the reality

[0:52:47] Voice 12: is until the legislation changes to allow tiny homes and to allow maybe yeah a lower standard

[0:52:53] Voice 12: for a smaller unit when you're not building a sprawling house you also don't need to have such

[0:52:58] Voice 12: such huge energy performance because just the size in itself will give you that energy performance so

[0:53:03] Voice 12: like i'm with you um but that's kind of like why um i talk about the prefab and the modular because

[0:53:09] Voice 12: it's a bit of it's a way around it's a way to bring the cost down without changing the code

[0:53:13] Voice 12: which seems like a really hard thing to do justine yeah

[0:53:17] Voice 3: so two things on that point and then by no

[0:53:19] Voice 3: means an expert but i do a lot of research so small housing you see i follow them and they're

[0:53:25] Voice 3: our research and advocacy group and they've just done a call out as part of Canada's housing plan

[0:53:31] Voice 3: for prefab modular housing panelized and 3d printed housing experts they want a catalog

[0:53:41] Voice 3: of designs and they're seeking input right now on that from innovators and creators so

[0:53:47] Voice 3: I think that modular housing is going to become more of the norm I'd be looking for

[0:53:51] Voice 3: what would be the

[0:53:53] Voice 8: gulf island special you know just like the vancouver special was in the 90s

[0:53:57] Voice 8: like what is appropriate for building the gulf islands the

[0:54:00] Voice 3: second piece um i've been doing some

[0:54:03] Voice 3: research on the bc building code and i did learn that there's an ask for a regional exemption

[0:54:09] Voice 3: like a local government for instance in okinawa they don't require the rain streams

[0:54:15] Voice 3: because it doesn't rain as much as it does down.

[0:54:18] Voice 3: So you can actually ask for a regional exemption.

[0:54:22] Voice 3: And so it's kind of buried in there.

[0:54:26] Voice 3: And I've talked to one of the senior,

[0:54:28] Voice 3: and he's like, no, no, no, the government's really done that.

[0:54:31] Voice 6: But if you actually got her

[0:54:32] Voice 3: acting in there

[0:54:33] Voice 3: to ask for a regional exemption for certain reasons

[0:54:36] Voice 3: for the Gulf Islands, I'd be all over that.

[0:54:38] Voice 3: As an advocate.

[0:54:40] Voice 12: That's a great idea.

[0:54:41] Voice 12: Thank you.

[0:54:43] Voice 6: Who needs to apply for that?

[0:54:44] Voice 6: It would be the regional district.

[0:54:46] Voice 6: A local government, so probably regional districts.

[0:54:50] Voice 15: Regional districts, yeah.

[0:54:53] Voice 15: So when we talk about a regional district,

[0:54:56] Voice 15: can government decide on its own to do this,

[0:55:00] Voice 15: or does it have to go to the board?

[0:55:02] Voice 12: It would be the board.

[0:55:03] Voice 12: There's

[0:55:04] Voice 15: no longer a regional.

[0:55:05] Voice 15: Oh, yeah, it is.

[0:55:06] Voice 12: Yeah, so it would be a decision of the board.

[0:55:09] Voice 12: And the way the governance works at the CRD

[0:55:13] Voice 12: is your director might bring a notice of motion to the electoral areas committee and they would

[0:55:17] Voice 12: endorse that and recommend the crd board endorse that and then they would they do they it's um

[0:55:25] Voice 12: yeah but on his own he does not represent the regional district um i'm here with

[0:55:32] Voice 13: an eye toward

[0:55:33] Voice 13: seniors housing are you going to be speaking about that later or yeah go ahead um

[0:55:39] Voice 14: okay so there's

[0:55:40] Voice 14: there's an issue on the island with getting over here to leave in order to get old

[0:55:46] Voice 9: successfully um

[0:55:48] Voice 14: is there any

[0:55:49] Voice 9: and

[0:55:50] Voice 14: i'd like to change that we

[0:55:51] Voice 14: shouldn't have to leave the islands when we

[0:55:53] Voice 14: get to live there but maybe we have big homes so we can't take care of anymore they're crumbling

[0:55:59] Voice 14: around us but there are no other forms of housing um now there's these things these pocket

[0:56:07] Voice 14: at

[0:56:07] Voice 8: communities of smaller homes people

[0:56:10] Voice 9: living together in community maybe

[0:56:12] Voice 9: there's a central

[0:56:13] Voice 9: guard and then that seems like a lovely alternative for someone to see now follow me perhaps i'm a

[0:56:20] Voice 14: landowner on the island not senior but i'm just a landowner i have one of those old parcels that

[0:56:24] Voice 14: would save a 10 acre minimum once maybe i've got some quality it's too much for me i don't want

[0:56:30] Voice 14: all this land i'd love to hide off a couple of acres for a senior's time alone community

[0:56:36] Voice 8: community seniors

[0:56:36] Voice 8: living thing, but I can't because my zoning doesn't permit. Can we see

[0:56:43] Voice 14: these two ideas working together somehow? There's got to be more landowners with large plots that

[0:56:48] Voice 14: would love to subdivide, and there's a whole bunch of seniors that would like to downsize

[0:56:52] Voice 14: and still stay on the island. How can we get that? Go ahead, Adrienne.

[0:56:58] Voice 12: Yeah, I mean, this is,

[0:56:59] Voice 12: this is, it's a, it's a great idea. I think the flexible housing zone that the Maine Island

[0:57:04] Voice 12: and local trust committee it's advanced is is one uh sort of step towards what you're talking about

[0:57:09] Voice 12: the other thing i was mentioning about being able to subdivide the unit away from the land

[0:57:14] Voice 12: would be another way to enable the financing of that but um it's zoning and then it's and then

[0:57:20] Voice 12: it's the the cost of development so there's those two sides of it um so the zoning could enable that

[0:57:26] Voice 12: and then you would you know the local trust committee would would be grappling with all

[0:57:31] Voice 12: the different things they would have to consider to make that a responsible decision right

[0:57:37] Voice 14: and have any of the tank reverses been busted up no

[0:57:41] Voice 16: no no one's

[0:57:45] Voice 14: asked that i know of

[0:57:46] Voice 6: but if you if you heard the beginning part that there is a presentation these are all the areas

[0:57:53] Voice 6: that we would like to pursue as to which areas would be suitable you know to sort of designate

[0:57:59] Voice 6: as we've done with flex housing basically expanding and then even going into

[0:58:04] Voice 9: the amenity zoning

[0:58:06] Voice 9: what sorts what sorts of amenities would you see as being suitable to take that candy from

[0:58:12] Voice 9: on and turn it into uh so what's the what's the first step in that process so the first step is

[0:58:18] Voice 9: to ensure that the ocp supports yeah the land because that's what you think yeah

[0:58:26] Voice 16: Yeah, so

[0:58:27] Voice 16: you need to have a policy that will allow that kind of zoning.

[0:58:37] Voice 6: It's sort of,

[0:58:37] Voice 14: if you talk

[0:58:38] Voice 6: about, because I put that

[0:58:40] Voice 14: in years ago, we talk about the multi-unit.

[0:58:42] Voice 14: Yeah,

[0:58:42] Voice 6: I mean it does, there's lines that would

[0:58:44] Voice 5: support, I hate that idea, so that would

[0:58:48] Voice 5: mean, and this is, you know, this is what we want to make sure, we want to make sure that

[0:58:53] Voice 5: there are any cases in the plan

[0:58:56] Voice 16: that are going to not allow that sort of creative thing to happen.

[0:59:01] Voice 5: And then you go for reasonable land.

[0:59:03] Voice 16: Now there's the

[0:59:03] Voice 5: opportunity through this process if somebody

[0:59:06] Voice 5: stepped up and did about 10 acres and we looked at the map and we go wow it's got a ton of water

[0:59:11] Voice 5: and what a fabulous location for something like that. There is an opportunity that through this

[0:59:17] Voice 6: processes,

[0:59:18] Voice 9: we go just as far

[0:59:19] Voice 9: as we can do that. But you know,

[0:59:22] Voice 9: I mean, there's a little look at

[0:59:26] Voice 9: realistically, though, it's finding a piece of property

[0:59:31] Voice 9: that's within the area. It's not too isolated seniors. So this

[0:59:36] Voice 9: the senior housing projects, numerous properties were

[0:59:40] Voice 9: proposed over about 45 years. So you really have to pick

[0:59:44] Voice 9: pick property that's within a walkable area.

[0:59:48] Voice 9: One of the things that the LPC did with their recent finding

[0:59:53] Voice 9: was a more flexible use of the

[1:00:00] Voice 9: church property specifically zone for a few years and now

[1:00:04] Voice 9: it's able to be more flexible and also

[1:00:06] Voice 9: allowed and

[1:00:08] Voice 5: also open up so that the

[1:00:09] Voice 9: location of the facility those are the sorts of small things

[1:00:15] Voice 9: that can support something

[1:00:19] Voice 16: in terms of moving forward and building anything that hasn't been

[1:00:26] Voice 16: it

[1:00:27] Voice 9: was all about the cost of construction so that the land

[1:00:34] Voice 9: part's not so difficult it's the actual

[1:00:37] Voice 9: construction the other

[1:00:38] Voice 9: issue with seniors i was going to go find you want to have some flexibility

[1:00:41] Voice 9: you don't want to make it so it's only seniors living in isolated areas you've got to be careful

[1:00:46] Voice 9: that you have a balanced

[1:00:47] Voice 9: balance

[1:00:48] Voice 14: of population there would need to be care aids or housing

[1:00:51] Voice 14: for service personnel for this place.

[1:00:55] Voice 14: They meet you all these years.

[1:00:56] Voice 14: Yeah, yeah, you leave your zoning to be a little bit closer.

[1:01:01] Voice 14: And then is there anything

[1:01:02] Voice 14: like that in the books right now?

[1:01:03] Voice 14: Or am I the first person to think about this?

[1:01:06] Voice 14: And

[1:01:07] Voice 5: this is where we look to develop, right?

[1:01:11] Voice 5: And there's, um,

[1:01:14] Voice 5: Hornby Island is a fabulous example.

[1:01:17] Voice 5: I mean, they were able to realize theirs because,

[1:01:19] Voice 5: this. And I actually participated in this project as a student. They had a landowner

[1:01:27] Voice 5: donate a large amount of land and we had a local architect writing this in fine time

[1:01:35] Voice 5: and they worked with UBC students to build the unit. So it's a wonderful example of sort

[1:01:44] Voice 5: what you're you're saying is that multiple

[1:01:47] Voice 9: small units in a concentrated area right

[1:01:49] Voice 9: walking into such and such and you know shared on the garden space and that sort of thing

[1:01:57] Voice 9: well

[1:01:58] Voice 5: it's even seen in the town right like at least this was a project in the nine years so

[1:02:03] Voice 5: first of all all the costs yeah the building code was not as limited as it is currently well you've

[1:02:08] Voice 14: You've

[1:02:08] Voice 5: got to be

[1:02:09] Voice 14: thinking about those prefab, prefab outages if they are, if they're pre-approved.

[1:02:16] Voice 14: Yeah,

[1:02:17] Voice 5: well, I mean, all of the different things that are happening, it's like, you know, right here in this room,

[1:02:22] Voice 5: we have people that are addressing problems from different angles.

[1:02:26] Voice 5: And there are people beyond us that are addressing all of these other pieces as well, like, you know,

[1:02:32] Voice 9: all of the all of these things that are

[1:02:38] Voice 9: so

[1:02:39] Voice 12: i mean and you know the governance relay right like if the zoning allows it allows the number of

[1:02:46] Voice 12: units like a greater number of units you don't want to necessarily like limit that to only be

[1:02:51] Voice 12: for seniors because maybe today that's for the seniors but then in a generation their community

[1:02:57] Voice 12: will be facing different needs and it will need to to house a different demographic in that same

[1:03:02] Voice 12: unit and you don't want to have to zone every generation right you want your housing stock to

[1:03:07] Voice 12: to last go ahead there's

[1:03:09] Voice 15: a there's one on salisbury pioneer

[1:03:12] Voice 14: village

[1:03:13] Voice 15: yeah

[1:03:14] Voice 14: and it's

[1:03:16] Voice 15: administrated by the lions like i mean and it works and it's 60 and up amazing that's what

[1:03:24] Voice 15: what we're talking about it's always testing for 60 and up like a big part of our workforce

[1:03:29] Voice 15: is 60 and up i'm 66 for god's sake

[1:03:32] Voice 8: i don't need

[1:03:32] Voice 15: i don't need a caretaker in this unit to take care

[1:03:35] Voice 15: of me there's you know i don't think we're talking about a uh you know an old age home that's you

[1:03:41] Voice 15: know uh you know where people need medical uh assistance it's when people empty nesting they

[1:03:49] Voice 15: want to sell their houses which also brings more housing on the market i could i could list a dozen

[1:03:56] Voice 15: people i know in in this situation here on main island that are uh that are in that age group

[1:04:01] Voice 15: that if they were offered a 652 bedrooms in entry level um cottage a cottage well built in in and

[1:04:11] Voice 15: and it's not a

[1:04:11] Voice 15: care home we're not talking carefully all right i'm not i'm not talking

[1:04:17] Voice 15: that's a completely different that's a completely different component uh but for somebody who wants

[1:04:23] Voice 15: to get rid of their two million dollar house or their or their little cottage or whatever that

[1:04:26] Voice 15: they can't maintain and move into a much smaller single level unit that's the demographic

[1:04:32] Voice 15: sure sure

[1:04:35] Voice 12: so the zoning needs to enable it and then you need to be able to afford to build it

[1:04:39] Voice 12: some people can some people can everyone's got a different situation but the whole the concept of

[1:04:44] Voice 12: like aging in place is really supported by having the zoning allow accessory dwelling units and then

[1:04:50] Voice 12: having you know like if you need a little bit of capital support um that's you know that's what

[1:04:55] Voice 12: we're trying to provide but um yeah so i think the uptake like this is another difference actually

[1:05:02] Voice 12: between the secondary suites incentive program and what we think the islands need is they have

[1:05:06] Voice 12: a restriction against um if you build a suite with that forty thousand dollars that they give you you

[1:05:12] Voice 12: can't rent it to a family member and we know on the islands we want to support this intergenerational

[1:05:17] Voice 12: housing because it's and so like there's um you know we're probably going to tailor ours a little

[1:05:22] Voice 12: bit more to the islands but um my point is that like your the needs of the community will change

[1:05:29] Voice 12: over time so today you know that you that extra unit might be a good place to downsize into and

[1:05:36] Voice 12: then in another generation it might be it might be like um used for a different place but you're

[1:05:43] Voice 15: not going to get a blanket approach that's going to solve every problem but if we do you know um

[1:05:50] Voice 15: 16 up um uh flex housing and it's it's multifaceted but to get a blanket approach

[1:05:59] Voice 14: because the church church filming now is open right yeah

[1:06:03] Voice 14: yeah and so yeah somebody should not

[1:06:07] Voice 14: restrict you to a certain age because you need that flexibility especially if they're not there

[1:06:11] Voice 14: okay

[1:06:12] Voice 15: i i choose to disagree but that's fine i respect your opinion

[1:06:16] Voice 13: did you have something

[1:06:17] Voice 13: yeah has there been a maximum growth point identified like a point where there's going

[1:06:23] Voice 13: to be too many people where the land is going to be taxed so much because if we're looking

[1:06:27] Voice 13: backwards we then have to strategically identify the types of things we want to develop maine for

[1:06:32] Voice 13: example is not a self-sufficient island we cannot meet all our needs by living here right whether

[1:06:38] Voice 13: it's medical whether it's um you know eye doctors or other things and it probably never would

[1:06:43] Voice 13: there's no transportation on this island so um just looking backwards i'm just wondering if

[1:06:48] Voice 13: there's been a number either in population growth or in some other kind of metric lesson identified

[1:06:53] Voice 13: us this is too much we're going to stop now i think

[1:06:57] Voice 13: we went

[1:06:58] Voice 5: beyond that years ago decades ago

[1:07:00] Voice 5: probably I would even say um what we have the islands trust uh the islands trust conservancy

[1:07:06] Voice 5: some years ago did a little bit of a like a threshold analysis Maine is definitely the

[1:07:12] Voice 5: closest threshold than most other islands but there are other things to consider as well right

[1:07:17] Voice 5: and that is um and one of the biggest things that I that that we're experiencing now is this

[1:07:23] Voice 5: demographic shift on the islands and this potential loss of community if we don't find

[1:07:32] Voice 5: ways to house the people that provide the services on these islands.

[1:07:35] Voice 5: So things have changed and evolved in a way that we never anticipated.

[1:07:39] Voice 5: And places like Denman Island and Gabriola Island, they've essentially created policies

[1:07:47] Voice 5: policies that have had growth. They've had density, well, I mean, Denman Island has a

[1:07:57] Voice 5: very specific density cap, and Gabriela has policies that essentially are a density cap.

[1:08:04] Voice 16: But both

[1:08:04] Voice 5: of those islands are right now digging into their housing projects, are looking at

[1:08:15] Voice 5: at essentially removing those because their communities can't survive if they can't

[1:08:21] Voice 5: provide housing for the people who provide their services. So the challenge is to really think

[1:08:28] Voice 5: about how to balance that need for people in the community, it's really the need for the community,

[1:08:35] Voice 5: and with the environment which is what supports all of us and everything around us and

[1:08:42] Voice 5: you know this whole region um and it's a very you know very unique and um and um insensitive

[1:08:50] Voice 5: ecosystem so um um and this is where like i feel quite excited about the work that we're doing

[1:08:56] Voice 5: with the suitable land analysis because we've been able to bring together um all of this data

[1:09:02] Voice 5: that we have around what you know i mean one of the fundamental pieces i think measurements for

[1:09:08] Voice 5: for carrying capacity water.

[1:09:11] Voice 5: So we have spent the last five years gathering data.

[1:09:17] Voice 5: We have a water specialist on the water.

[1:09:21] Voice 5: And now we're getting to the point

[1:09:22] Voice 5: where we can bring all that together

[1:09:24] Voice 5: and it's beginning to inform our decision-making.

[1:09:27] Voice 5: So the difficult decisions is up to

[1:09:31] Voice 5: our local decision-makers

[1:09:32] Voice 5: because it's gonna be trade-offs, right?

[1:09:35] Voice 5: Right. And there are what are our mapping and our data is showing us is that there are some places that are going to be more suitable to put more people.

[1:09:47] Voice 5: And there are places that are less suitable for more people.

[1:09:51] Voice 5: And ultimately that, you know, there's a whole range there.

[1:09:56] Voice 5: And that and the decision is how much and it's a difficult decision because we don't think there have been changes in this world.

[1:10:05] Voice 5: that will never end, and those impact every single community, so.

[1:10:13] Voice 8: Shondon, would you like to speak?

[1:10:14] Voice 8: Hi.

[1:10:15] Voice 15: One of the realities that we're facing is that this planet has upwards of 8,000 people

[1:10:21] Voice 15: away.

[1:10:22] Voice 15: It's total money.

[1:10:24] Voice 15: The other, you know, when you're looking at density, the issue that you mentioned is

[1:10:30] Voice 15: water.

[1:10:30] Voice 15: It seems to be the opposite of this.

[1:10:32] Voice 15: New Zealand has the same issue where there's no wells.

[1:10:35] Voice 15: They capture their rainwater.

[1:10:36] Voice 15: that's how we do the water thing. We lose upwards of 95% of the water that falls on the island

[1:10:45] Voice 15: because we don't capture it. It's not part of the building code to capture water.

[1:10:50] Voice 15: You mentioned cisterns but is that rainwater capture? Yeah. It seems to me that those

[1:10:56] Voice 15: constraints can be managed to enable things to

[1:11:02] Voice 16: happen but ultimately it seems to me that

[1:11:07] you know the local designers

[1:11:09] Voice 15: i think the local designers have has come back to the community

[1:11:15] Voice 15: deciding for itself what it wants what it needs and being out the next by experts to help decide

[1:11:22] Voice 15: that but to keep exporting these decisions to other levels islands trust the crg the dc uh

[1:11:30] government the province federally but the people who live here are the people that appear

[1:11:38] living and that's where

[1:11:40] Voice 15: it needs to start and close the loop how do we know these strategies

[1:11:49] Voice 15: will actually deliver anything beyond having another service another person in some office

[1:11:54] Voice 15: does a job but doesn't have really an impact on the community i'm

[1:12:01] Voice 10: not accusing that situation but

[1:12:03] Voice 10: how do we know there's accountability back to the community so there is forward progress

[1:12:07] Voice 10: And I couldn't stand that.

[1:12:12] Voice 11: Well, how do you know?

[1:12:16] Voice 11: So, I mean, it's...

[1:12:20] Voice 15: It's almost a rhetorical question.

[1:12:22] Voice 11: There's no answer.

[1:12:23] Voice 15: We're not structured.

[1:12:25] Voice 15: I would

[1:12:26] Voice 12: say that the islands have the highest representation of community, of any community I can imagine in BC.

[1:12:36] Voice 12: You've got two elected officials for a population of 2,000 people.

[1:12:40] Voice 12: um that is um very direct representation for your local government so at the land use

[1:12:47] Voice 12: level i would say the main island community is very uh has has very close access to the

[1:12:55] Voice 12: nexus of decision making over land use um at the you know and as you go up from local government

[1:13:01] Voice 12: to senior government there does be there is you know layers of of space basically where you have

[1:13:07] Voice 12: less and less access to the decision makers the sort of more senior you get when you're thinking

[1:13:12] Voice 12: about government um the regional district is kind of the next level up and you have one elected of

[1:13:17] Voice 12: a representative um for your five islands um and that's but you know like we're here today

[1:13:24] Voice 12: talking to you about these programs making sure checking in with the community making sure that

[1:13:29] Voice 12: uh we know um your response and that we're like um trying to build something that is going to be

[1:13:36] Voice 12: of use to the community is going to have the uptake that we hope it will because we could

[1:13:41] Voice 12: not do it right yeah so yeah so this go ahead just

[1:13:48] Voice 14: thinking about the outreach

[1:13:50] Voice 14: um and the demographic that doesn't live here i'm just the flowers don't

[1:13:56] Voice 16: work to be here right now

[1:13:57] Voice 16: so i'm thinking about like maybe there's something that can you're scheduling the

[1:14:03] Voice 16: meeting that can include people yeah

[1:14:09] Voice 8: excellent point um

[1:14:12] Voice 5: so i'm just thinking um we are gonna

[1:14:15] Voice 5: this is actually a really good i think segue to the next piece which is uh is actually looking

[1:14:21] Voice 5: at the people that are are building like moving forward and supporting the the building and and

[1:14:28] Voice 5: the assistance to folks that are looking for housing um so i know we've got one more question

[1:14:35] Voice 5: Debra, you had one question, then I was thinking we'd take a quick break so everybody

[1:14:39] Voice 5: got a lot of cookies there. And then

[1:14:43] Voice 5: we can move into that. Because I think, I mean, I'm very inspired

[1:14:47] Voice 5: by the work that's being done by these not-for-profit

[1:14:51] Voice 5: organizations to really help move forward. And our role

[1:14:55] Voice 5: is really to help that good work to happen

[1:14:59] Voice 5: and then at that

[1:15:01] Voice 5: higher level to address some of the

[1:15:03] Voice 5: help to together really to address some of those those those challenges that that are our our

[1:15:10] Voice 5: partners you know who we need to hand the baton on on to um you know need to deal with so um do

[1:15:18] Voice 5: you want to ask your question now thank you

[1:15:19] Voice 6: i would like to i've got both of you standing there

[1:15:23] Voice 6: you both talk about advocacy and i'd like to bring that into a bit of a conversation here

[1:15:29] Voice 6: And you've talked about how building on the Gulf Islands, we've talked about that

[1:15:33] Voice 6: it's expensive, for multiple reasons it's expensive. And you've talked about infrastructure

[1:15:38] Voice 6: being more expensive because of the nature of the Gulf Islands and there's no municipal

[1:15:43] Voice 6: infrastructure. It's a seriously big point for those of us who are building developments

[1:15:49] Voice 6: on the island, as well as having capital funding and the funders.

[1:15:55] Voice 6: and we develop typically smaller developments so the paradigm of the big funders the provincial

[1:16:05] Voice 6: government and how they determine what they're going to fund I think needs to change I'm wondering

[1:16:12] Voice 6: if there can be some advocacy around that for instance the you know we're working with BC

[1:16:20] Voice 6: housing, for example, capital funds for these things. Well, how many 10 unit developments do

[1:16:28] Voice 6: they actually fund in rural areas? I'm not sure I don't have that number. But I think that there

[1:16:33] Voice 6: needs to be a different sort of a rural housing package developed from the province. In addition

[1:16:44] Voice 6: to what's available to speak to this needs, and I don't know if there's some way that

[1:16:50] Voice 6: the local trust,

[1:16:52] Voice 6: Iowa's trust, CRD can

[1:16:54] Voice 6: advocate for that because

[1:16:55] Voice 6: we all need the housing and it's not going to be

[1:16:58] Voice 6: a huge 50 unit

[1:17:00] Voice 6: apartment buildings.

[1:17:02] Voice 12: Yeah, so a few weeks ago the

[1:17:04] Voice 12: CRD board director

[1:17:06] Voice 12: Paul Brand brought forward a notice of motion

[1:17:08] Voice 12: and the CRD board passed

[1:17:09] Voice 12: a resolution

[1:17:11] Voice 12: requesting the province to create rural funding

[1:17:14] Voice 12: streams for rural housing.

[1:17:16] Voice 12: And that is similar

[1:17:18] Voice 12: to the Strathclyde Regional District also passed a resolution and in fact through the Rural Islands

[1:17:23] Voice 12: Economic Partnership there's a movement building of advocacy to coordinate advocacy across rural

[1:17:30] Voice 12: islands asking for rural funding envelopes for affordable housing and one of the main objectives

[1:17:36] Voice 12: of the Southern Gulf Islands Housing Strategy was to get the CRD to create a rural housing program

[1:17:42] Voice 12: now we've got that and a major goal of that is to create have the province create a rural housing

[1:17:46] Voice 12: program so you know that's great

[1:17:49] Voice 12: and and i mean like every every opportunity i get i advance it

[1:17:53] Voice 12: if i have a provincial audience but it's also happening politically too and you know you can

[1:17:59] Voice 12: write letters to when you get your um i mean we know who the mla is going to be now like i think

[1:18:04] Voice 12: that like individual advocacy coordinated obviously we need it all at all levels and so

[1:18:09] Voice 12: um for sure it's about rural envelopes of funding for rural housing programming

[1:18:15] Voice 12: running. Yeah, so. Okay. Thank you.

[1:18:44] Voice 17: Lisa, we're taking a break. Can you hear everything okay?

[1:18:50] Voice 6: Yes, Elliot, I can hear everything okay. And I'll put up a break slide if you want to

[1:18:54] Voice 6: mute and then unmute yourself when you're ready to start again

[1:28:18] Voice 2: it's very

[1:28:21] Voice 5: exciting their model they have a really a really interesting ownership

[1:28:26] Voice 5: affordable ownership model I'll let you take it away thank you

[1:28:34] Voice 10: Scott the CEO bailed on me so you know

[1:28:37] Voice 16: I'll

[1:28:39] Voice 10: try and do this

[1:28:52] Voice 4: he likes his bed

[1:28:54] Voice 15: we're always afraid to get stuck in victoria so yeah

[1:29:00] Voice 10: habitat victoria is one of 45 affiliates of habitat canada and our affiliate runs from

[1:29:09] Voice 10: cobble hill to the southern gulf islands we've been in existence since 19

[1:29:14] Voice 10: Since that time, we have built 34 homes and served 38 families.

[1:29:22] Voice 10: You say, how can we do that?

[1:29:25] Voice 10: When a family moves out, we buy the home back, fix it up, and sell it to the next family.

[1:29:31] Voice 10: So we're in it for the long haul.

[1:29:38] Voice 10: We are the only not-for-profit charity that does home ownership.

[1:29:44] Voice 10: And the families can build equity up in their homes.

[1:29:49] Voice 10: How do they do that?

[1:29:51] Voice 10: Two ways.

[1:29:52] Voice 10: part of their mortgage is through the traditional bank or credit union right now our affiliate is

[1:30:00] Voice 10: fan city so they get a mortgage of up to 50 percent of the value of the home for that and

[1:30:07] Voice 10: then that money comes to us so that we hopefully can build more homes the other 50 percent is through

[1:30:15] Voice 10: the bank of mom and dad i mean habitat that's zero percent so we don't make any money maximum

[1:30:24] Voice 10: the family will pay is 30 percent of their gross wages that'll go towards you two mortgages

[1:30:31] Voice 10: property taxes and strata fees how do we do that every year we review their income tax

[1:30:41] Voice 10: so one year you could be making seventy thousand dollars and next year you'll be making a thousand

[1:30:50] Voice 10: you still only pay thirty percent so your standard mortgage will stay the same for your term

[1:30:57] Voice 10: the value you pay the habitat fluctuates so it could come on we believe that providing a home

[1:31:14] Voice 10: to a family provides stability to the family generational wealth what does that mean for the

[1:31:22] Voice 10: kids family parents educational and long-term social economics each habitat home has a

[1:31:41] Voice 10: social return of investment of $175,000. So to qualify for a mortgage, you have to meet

[1:31:58] Voice 10: certain criteria. So one is the ability to pay the mortgage. It's like going to the bank.

[1:32:07] Voice 10: If you can't afford to pay the mortgage, of course, you're the home state of that. You

[1:32:12] Voice 10: have to partner with Habitat. You have to provide up to 500 hours of volunteer work

[1:32:19] Voice 10: to Habitat or to one of our affiliate associations.

[1:32:23] Voice 10: The 500 hours is broken down.

[1:32:27] Voice 10: If it's a couple, 100 hours can be family and friends.

[1:32:32] Voice 10: It's a single parent, 250 hours of family and friends anywhere in Canada.

[1:32:39] Voice 10: So if you have family,

[1:32:41] Voice 10: if you're a selected candidate

[1:32:43] Voice 10: and you have family in Toronto, you can volunteer at ReStores

[1:32:49] Voice 10: or whatever they're doing out there.

[1:32:51] Voice 10: there, and those hours

[1:32:52] Voice 10: are as capital. So you have to be a Canadian citizen or a permanent

[1:33:00] Voice 10: resident and you have to have minor children. Habitat fuel in doing these developments is

[1:33:09] Voice 10: is four points. We're the developer. If we initiate the project, we're the developer.

[1:33:15] Voice 10: We could be a builder if the land is donated to us at the same time as being the owner

[1:33:24] Voice 10: of the land. We could be the lender, we could be providing financial contributions to a builder

[1:33:32] Voice 10: building something for us and then we manage the homes longer. The struggle that we have

[1:33:44] Voice 10: as a not-for-profit is we are never guaranteed any government. We have to raise the money all

[1:33:53] Voice 10: ourselves. One of the biggest problems we have is land. How do we afford it? We used to have

[1:34:08] Voice 10: land donated to us. We recently purchased a piece of property in Borden Head area in Saanich.

[1:34:19] Voice 10: We want to build 14 unit complex. 13 will be three bedrooms, one will be a one bedroom fully

[1:34:26] Voice 10: accessible unit. We paid 1.4 million for that lot. That's money that we had to take out of our build

[1:34:36] Voice 10: fund. Because no one's given, no one has been able to provide us with land. It's going to cost us

[1:34:44] Voice 10: $8 million to build that home. So we're trying to raise funds. We've asked governments, but

[1:34:57] Voice 10: everything is to rentals, unfortunately. The other problem we have is, like most builders,

[1:35:16] Voice 10: is the holding cost of these projects. We've already submitted a first round of plans to

[1:35:25] Voice 10: it took them 10 weeks to just get their internal reading done and they came back with 29 pages of

[1:35:34] Voice 10: comments to us and

[1:35:35] Voice 2: then

[1:35:38] Voice 10: we designed it the way the ocp said they said no we would love to have you

[1:35:43] Voice 10: have the houses face inwards the ocp doesn't love that by the way we're changing the road allowance

[1:35:51] Voice 10: too so we have to review the road we'll get back to you so we're stuck so we're eating costs

[1:36:06] Voice 10: If we can get this development done, there will be nine parking spots.

[1:36:15] Voice 10: You say, how can you do that? We're going to do a bike pavilion.

[1:36:20] Voice 10: And then we're going to put a car sharing as well.

[1:36:23] Voice 10: How

[1:36:31] Voice 8: many units?

[1:36:32] Voice 8: There's 14 units.

[1:36:35] Voice 10: 13 three-beddings.

[1:36:44] Voice 10: So how do we raise the money?

[1:36:47] Voice 10: We have these different events throughout the year.

[1:36:50] Voice 10: Our big annual showcase is the Gingerbread Showcase in late November, December, early January.

[1:36:58] Voice 10: Again, this year, we're going to be at Hotel Grand Pacific.

[1:37:01] Voice 10: We have 35 waiters that have signed up.

[1:37:05] Voice 10: We have a list of 10 or 12 that are waiting in the waiting.

[1:37:10] Voice 10: Last year, we had about 14,000 votes.

[1:37:19] Voice 10: So each vote, you make a donation.

[1:37:23] Voice 10: And we raised over $100,000.

[1:37:27] Voice 10: We want to be that.

[1:37:29] Voice 10: Hopefully, if you're over in Victoria, you can come and visit us.

[1:37:34] Voice 9: Press Council, we always go.

[1:37:35] Voice 9: I always go.

[1:37:36] Voice 10: It's also online.

[1:37:38] Voice 9: Oh, okay.

[1:37:39] Voice 16: It's going to be online.

[1:37:42] Voice 10: You can let all your friends know what that's going to be.

[1:37:44] Voice 16: Do

[1:37:45] Voice 14: you know the date it's running?

[1:37:50] Voice 10: 22nd of November to the 5th of January.

[1:37:53] Voice 10: another event that we're holding is a 50 50 draw with the other two affiliates on the island

[1:38:03] Voice 10: information on that on our website if all the tickets sell there's the potential don't quote

[1:38:12] Voice 10: there's the potential of a hundred thousand dollar gift or the winning price so

[1:38:21] Voice 10: you can ask me what the price of tickets are five tickets for twenty five dollars

[1:38:28] Voice 10: start or you can spend a hundred dollars you get a hundred tickets we also partner with other

[1:38:41] Voice 10: organizations to do events mayfair mall is partnered with us we did a an open a door

[1:38:49] Voice 10: campaign where artists came into our stores and received a door from us they went to

[1:38:57] Voice 10: island blueprint received a credit or a value of artistic supplies and then we raffled those

[1:39:05] Voice 10: buildings off victoria royals has partnered with us we're selling tickets to a hockey game on

[1:39:12] Voice 10: december 13th and then we are the charity of choice on the 50th so we're working on our last

[1:39:28] Voice 10: three builds that we have done, we have received the properties because two

[1:39:36] Voice 10: municipalities said that the developers needed to do some type of floor build. Two of

[1:39:45] Voice 10: them were just a single lot and we just compacted them. When you're on the Pat Bay

[1:39:53] Voice 10: Highway just coming up to McTavish interchange when you're going southbound

[1:39:58] Voice 10: on your left-hand side, you'll see a development with some blue and white

[1:40:03] Voice 10: houses. That is our 10-unit development we built. Again that lot was donated to

[1:40:12] Voice 10: us. We built six three bedrooms in two buildings and then we built two

[1:40:22] Voice 10: duplexes. A two-bedroom on one side and four bedrooms fully accessible unit on

[1:40:29] Voice 10: the other side with an elevator inside. That went up really well. We want to

[1:40:37] Voice 10: continue building. We'd like to come over onto the Gulf Islands, but we struggled. How can we make

[1:40:46] Voice 10: that happen? We had chats with the Housing Society, had chats with others. Is there a way that we can

[1:40:57] Voice 10: come over and help? If someone had some land that wanted to donate to Habitat, we could potentially

[1:41:12] Voice 10: give a tax credit or receipt for it. Would that help? When we first started talking with Islands

[1:41:22] Voice 10: trust we talked about. What if we did a single family home or a duplex if it was allowed on

[1:41:30] Voice 10: that property and then put that in behind for lower income and or seniors. We'd like to be here

[1:41:43] Voice 10: but unfortunately our hands are tied with financial criteria. Do you

[1:41:58] Voice 16: have any flexibility

[1:41:58] Voice 16: with the amount of the tax receipt that you can issue? Just market value? Market value.

[1:42:08] Voice 10: So the development we did on Bakerview, the land was assessed at $1.4 million.

[1:42:14] Voice 10: We gave a tax receipt for $1.4 million. So we get it appraised and that's what we've used.

[1:42:22] Voice 8: Is it new builds only or renovations as well?

[1:42:26] Voice 10: New builds only. Habitat does have a program to do critical repairs.

[1:42:35] Voice 10: We have not done that yet because we don't have the knowledge or the capability

[1:42:42] Voice 10: but we're looking into it

[1:42:46] Voice 15: if your another criteria is it has to be a young family

[1:42:51] Voice 15: what happens when the family ages out do you keep the odor no

[1:42:54] Voice 10: so they

[1:42:55] Voice 15: can see we

[1:42:56] Voice 10: cannot pick them

[1:42:57] Voice 10: out the only way we that habitat would have that family removed is if they can't pay their mortgages

[1:43:05] Voice 10: or the financial requirements for that year

[1:43:08] Voice 15: so they can live and live

[1:43:11] Voice 15: on it indefinitely

[1:43:12] Voice 15: we

[1:43:12] Voice 10: encourage them once the kids leave to move on and a lot of them do

[1:43:21] Voice 16: david and you were saying um

[1:43:24] Voice 5: uh new builds only however i know that you have looked at um moving used homes

[1:43:30] Voice 10: yeah

[1:43:31] Voice 5: that

[1:43:34] Voice 10: is considered a new home right because we're servicing a new family

[1:43:47] Voice 10: We've actually been having chats with the Heckle Brothers about what's the potential

[1:43:53] Voice 10: of bringing homes over down to the island.

[1:43:59] Voice 10: We're in touch with the Deutsche developers who have bought a large swaths of land and

[1:44:06] Voice 10: they have all these homes that they want to give away and that's one of the things that

[1:44:11] Voice 10: we've thought about it but right now it's we've got to get the zoning in place back on so you're

[1:44:22] Voice 14: looking for a very particular landowner if that's my primary residence there is no tax on that for

[1:44:31] Voice 14: me and the only thing you're doing is a tax receipt if you have retired you know how flexible

[1:44:36] Voice 14: you come in for and i just sold my primary properties

[1:44:40] Voice 9: i don't have a couple gains tax

[1:44:41] Voice 9: tax, that tax receivables are of limited value to me, but if

[1:44:49] Voice 10: you sell a property, that's

[1:44:53] Voice 10: this position for property, then I don't

[1:44:55] Voice 14: know how it works.

[1:45:09] Voice 8: So the

[1:45:10] Voice 16: affordable ownership, that's to help families get to the postage bill, is that

[1:45:19] Voice 8: right?

[1:45:21] Voice 10: We're trying to take families from the rental industry, social out, first home,

[1:45:31] Voice 9: so we want

[1:45:34] Voice 9: to sort of keep that in mind.

[1:45:36] Voice 9: We're not missing anything.

[1:45:40] Voice 9: Yeah, I said call it.

[1:45:44] Voice 9: You mentioned that some of the appreciation goes to homes and some goes

[1:45:49] Voice 10: to the same.

[1:45:51] Voice 10: No.

[1:45:53] Voice 10: Through the bank, you'll get a percentage.

[1:45:57] Voice 10: space don't match, so I'm going to have to sort of gain a little bit.

[1:46:02] If you were to ultimately sell, it's sold back, how is that priced in Germany?

[1:46:10] Voice 10: Does that family

[1:46:12] Voice 15: build equity over there?

[1:46:13] They

[1:46:14] Voice 10: do, not like the right side, the real one, but they still build it.

[1:46:21] Voice 10: It's a whole financial formula.

[1:46:29] Voice 10: But

[1:46:32] Voice 9: presumably it's given them time to raise their children, move towards whatever retirement

[1:46:37] Voice 9: needs, something smaller and simpler, less state of the board, and they don't have to

[1:46:47] Voice 9: move.

[1:46:50] Voice 9: We also talked about secondary suites within that dwelling to add to their income.

[1:46:55] Voice 10: We don't have that right now.

[1:46:57] Voice 10: We built one complex where we did what we call flex housing, where we had a bachelor's

[1:47:05] Voice 10: suite on the bottom floor and two of the three families and family would get moved in.

[1:47:17] Voice 10: So

[1:47:20] Voice 6: would you consider, if you were coming out to the Gulf Islands, to institute that

[1:47:26] Voice 6: kind of the model again where a family could live in the house but there could be a suite built for

[1:47:33] Voice 6: uh rental for someone in the community yes you

[1:47:37] Voice 10: talked about that so straight up yeah

[1:47:40] Voice 10: because we know that there's housing for people who rented the rental so if we were able to come

[1:47:52] Voice 10: over how could we do it and how both markets or is

[1:47:57] Voice 9: it doable have

[1:48:02] Voice 8: you have you ever um

[1:48:05] Voice 8: Some

[1:48:05] Voice 12: projects like in rural communities, using the kind of tool in the Strata Property Act that we were talking about.

[1:48:12] Voice 12: Someone might own a property, they have to house on that property, but they said divide the footprint of a cottage off, and then they could sell that to you.

[1:48:22] Voice 12: And then that becomes a Habitat for Humanity unit, and then maybe they get a tax receipt.

[1:48:31] Voice 16: This

[1:48:34] Voice 10: is our first foray into the outside of the Great Victoria area, so that's an interesting

[1:48:42] Voice 6: idea on how we can go toward it.

[1:48:45] Voice 6: Well we know, we know that there's a need for affordable housing here, rental housing,

[1:48:50] Voice 6: affordable home ownership, but there's also a need, just a general need for more rental

[1:48:55] Voice 6: housing.

[1:48:55] Voice 6: So, whether it's market housing or affordable housing, there's anything better than what we've got now.

[1:49:04] Voice 6: We

[1:49:10] Voice 10: would like to be able to work on the islands, but now it's a small board for us.

[1:49:18] Voice 10: We're trying to work with Islands Trust and everybody else in the island.

[1:49:28] Voice 6: It's only the land. We looked for years for land.

[1:49:33] Voice 6: Well, that's one of the things, I mean, yeah,

[1:49:35] Voice 5: it's funny when you find the perfect piece of land, right?

[1:49:38] Voice 5: Because we can really start talking. And so we can find that.

[1:49:43] Voice 5: And, you know, I

[1:49:44] Voice 5: mean, it's interesting, like, the last time Habitat was here, there were a couple of people saying,

[1:49:50] Voice 5: Oh, I've got something I need to do to give it to you. I remember this conversation and I'm like, where is that?

[1:49:56] Voice 5: we need to find those people

[1:49:58] Voice 5: in the community

[1:50:00] Voice 10: we as an organization

[1:50:02] Voice 10: are also having

[1:50:03] Voice 10: discussions with faith-based groups

[1:50:07] Voice 10: so the Anglican Church

[1:50:09] Voice 10: we know about

[1:50:10] Voice 10: the church

[1:50:11] Voice 10: we have discussions with other groups

[1:50:16] Voice 10: where we can partner

[1:50:17] Voice 10: where we may just be

[1:50:19] Voice 10: have a bare hands

[1:50:22] Voice 10: thanks David

[1:50:28] Voice 16: It's just a

[1:50:30] Voice 9: great model.

[1:50:34] Voice 5: It's not funny looking at it as a little ownership.

[1:50:39] Voice 5: Yeah.

[1:50:40] Voice 5: Okay, so let's move into the rental sphere of things.

[1:50:48] Voice 5: I absolutely love this project, so I'm so glad you're here.

[1:50:52] Voice 5: It's so nice to

[1:50:52] Voice 5: meet you, Jackie.

[1:50:53] Voice 5: It's so nice to meet you, too.

[1:50:54] Voice 5: Thanks for having us.

[1:50:56] Voice 5: It's Lynch, right?

[1:50:57] Voice 5: Lauren.

[1:50:57] Voice 5: I knew it was an L.

[1:50:58] Voice 5: Jackie.

[1:50:59] Voice 5: Jackie.

[1:51:00] Voice 4: film introduce themselves i have to go in five minutes because we're preparing for a cross-country

[1:51:05] Voice 4: meet tomorrow so if any of you guys are around at 9 a.m it's a cross-country meet galliano school

[1:51:11] Voice 4: versus main island over around the school so please come cheer us on bring your drums and

[1:51:16] Voice 4: your cowbells um but they'll run over children yes that most importantly um and uh yes so we

[1:51:24] Voice 4: have our last practice today so we'll just lauren's gonna start yeah talk about the project

[1:51:28] Voice 4: and if there's any quick questions we'll kind of like quickly go through and then on the boat yeah

[1:51:32] Voice 7: um okay so i think most of you know about this a lot of you contributed uh directly or indirectly

[1:51:39] Voice 7: to it we basically had a huge issue at the school we could not get sap to stay because they couldn't

[1:51:45] Voice 7: find housing on the island or they lived on salt spring and they had to catch the water taxi every

[1:51:51] Voice 7: day which is a brutal very long trip for somebody to make daily um jackie with her

[1:51:58] Voice 7: wonderful eyes

[1:51:59] Voice 7: said what's that building over there that kind of decrepit ghostly building and all of us were like

[1:52:05] Voice 7: we don't really know it's maybe it's a workshop you know and uh and she said well maybe is this

[1:52:12] Voice 7: something that we could utilize as rental housing for our staff the school um it took some discussion

[1:52:18] Voice 7: we had to deal with the district but the school district was really excellent because

[1:52:26] Voice 7: after initial conversations and basically signing of agreement that we could have this

[1:52:31] Voice 7: e-rental housing they kind of took a step back which allowed us on the island to kind of do our

[1:52:36] Voice 7: thing without having to run a ton by them which was advantageous because it moved the project along

[1:52:42] Voice 7: on a lot quicker um trying to think the district the way the agreement worked out is the district

[1:52:49] Voice 7: still owns the building because it's on their property um and so they are basically holding

[1:52:56] Voice 7: the rental funds that are made for us in a separate account that will be used to pay for

[1:53:04] Voice 7: repairs or upgrades to the building as needed and once it hits a certain number that will actually

[1:53:10] Voice 7: come back to the school to decide what we want to do with the funding if we get to that number

[1:53:15] Voice 7: it all depends on how everything holds up um but for us the big thing was the fundraising

[1:53:21] Voice 7: um we did get a grant from the crd granted aid uh project which helped us a little bit but it's still

[1:53:28] Voice 7: our budget we started with an eighty thousand dollar kind of budget that we needed to hit

[1:53:33] Voice 7: um jackie is amazing she can make any connection and she can make people not make people but

[1:53:40] Voice 7: she can highly suggest that they do things for a low price and so we had an amazing community

[1:53:49] Voice 7: buy-in we had contractors that would come in we hired a project manager which made all the

[1:53:55] Voice 7: difference because then it wasn't the pack that was having to manage everything we still had a

[1:54:00] Voice 7: lot to do with it but the project manager was on site during the day and he kind of made some of

[1:54:06] Voice 7: of the decisions and he was also a skilled laborer so he could be working on the project as well

[1:54:11] Voice 7: um funds were raised a lot by just putting it out there we have a huge teacher community on

[1:54:19] Voice 7: this island a ton of retired teachers and so we discovered

[1:54:23] Voice 7: everybody yeah so they they helped a

[1:54:27] Voice 7: lot we did auctions um jackie got on cbc radio locally and nationally to get it in there and

[1:54:35] Voice 7: we also were times colonist um so we got in pr so that part was easy but um yeah

[1:54:42] Voice 4: no no no no it was

[1:54:45] Voice 4: it was a huge group effort mostly lauren and i to be honest because we were on the ground every day

[1:54:49] Voice 4: working on this project but it was it was so much fun it was exciting it happened very quickly which

[1:54:54] Voice 4: is what we wanted to get someone in there as fast as possible and the result is now for the first

[1:54:59] Voice 4: time i think in mainland school of history every educator that we have lives on mayhem

[1:55:03] Voice 4: Yeah, I mean, there's no 100%.

[1:55:05] Voice 4: There's very exciting friends and clients who are interested

[1:55:07] Voice 4: in this project as well.

[1:55:09] Voice 4: The home hardware.

[1:55:11] Voice 4: The home hardware.

[1:55:11] Voice 4: Even my husband's a home builder and an architect,

[1:55:14] Voice 4: which was extremely helpful, obviously.

[1:55:16] Voice 4: He did all the drawings and the plans.

[1:55:18] Voice 4: I just sent you the new plans for the front entrance.

[1:55:22] Voice 4: I had him say yes.

[1:55:25] Voice 4: He said

[1:55:25] Voice 15: no to that.

[1:55:27] Voice 4: But his connections in Vancouver really helped us as well because

[1:55:30] Voice 4: Because even for suppliers, they're like, oh, I have two kids that are teachers.

[1:55:34] Voice 4: I'll give you anything you want, you know, this kind of thing.

[1:55:36] Voice 4: So it really helped, like, you know, just tick those boxes throughout the process.

[1:55:40] Voice 4: And it worked out well.

[1:55:41] Voice 4: We're really happy with the result.

[1:55:42] Voice 4: People that live there are super happy.

[1:55:45] Voice 4: And they've lived there again through the school year, which is awesome.

[1:55:48] Voice 4: So it's achieved its intended purpose.

[1:55:51] Voice 4: Obviously, this is a very unique situation in that we did not have to acquire land to make this project happen.

[1:55:55] Voice 4: and it was intended as a teacherage from the outset brought their kind of a nipple girder style

[1:56:00] Voice 4: in the 70s um and all the infrastructure was put in place it was just old and it needed to be

[1:56:07] Voice 4: fixed basically so all those things helped us make this happen like it would have been really

[1:56:13] Voice 4: hard if it's just a bare land and we've developed from scratch um but because of you know the

[1:56:18] Voice 4: infrastructure that was there and the asset that the district already had and their willingness

[1:56:22] Voice 4: is to work with us on this um we were able to make it happen in six or eight months i think

[1:56:27] Voice 4: that's kind of a year from start to finish yeah yeah for sure so it worked out amazingly and it

[1:56:33] Voice 4: was super fun so

[1:56:34] Voice 6: it's a great option who organized your option

[1:56:38] Voice 4: um i did thank you i'm glad it worked

[1:56:42] Voice 4: out yeah it was awesome there's a lot of numbers here actually yeah

[1:56:45] Voice 7: i think in the end i think we

[1:56:47] Voice 7: hit around it was $90,000 was what we ended up spending and then there was a lot of like a lot

[1:56:53] Voice 7: of interior stuff was donated and again like a lot of time was donated so I don't even know what

[1:56:58] Voice 7: that cost the

[1:56:59] Voice 4: one thing that I mean like this is maybe a habitat for humanity type idea but there

[1:57:05] Voice 4: was so many materials donated so there's projects going on on main island everywhere constantly

[1:57:12] Voice 4: constantly they have all this extra material they throw it out or whatever so if there was a way to

[1:57:17] Voice 4: like in terms of affordable housing i don't know if the government could take this on it would be

[1:57:22] Voice 4: crazy but have like a warehouse of all of these things that you could store and people could use

[1:57:27] Voice 4: the restore i know it was like a tiny version of that but i'm saying like old construction

[1:57:31] Voice 4: materials tiles sinks just that we got all this stuff and because we were retrofitting we couldn't

[1:57:36] Voice 4: really use a lot of it but there's a huge opportunity there for to reuse stuff that's

[1:57:41] Voice 4: still perfectly fine that may not be brand new and beautiful like Vancouver condo style but

[1:57:46] Voice 4: is perfectly great and functions and looks decent and is able to be cleaned up and used again

[1:57:56] Voice 9: sorry me

[1:57:57] Voice 7: no no and

[1:57:58] Voice 7: I think like the other nice thing that has worked out with the district is

[1:58:03] Voice 7: we just had like our first repair and we had to work through it but it's basically the district

[1:58:07] Voice 7: has now covered the cost of it was a repair on a heat pump and so it's nice for the pack because

[1:58:12] Voice 7: we didn't want to have to be saddled with maintaining this thing in perpetuity because

[1:58:18] Voice 7: we're swapping in and out so having the district be able to kind of hold on to that aspect of

[1:58:23] Voice 7: things has made it a lot

[1:58:25] Voice 7: easier and

[1:58:25] Voice 4: we actually saw the line item on the school district budget

[1:58:30] Voice 4: yeah teachers account was like it's there oh my god i never thought it would happen

[1:58:34] Voice 4: so that was really exciting it's

[1:58:37] Voice 7: kind of the project in a nutshell but if there's any one

[1:58:41] Voice 15: of the other things it goes back to some of our previous discussion one of the things that allowed

[1:58:45] Voice 15: this project to work was both the school district and crd but you guys both

[1:58:51] Voice 16: it

[1:58:51] Voice 15: was there's the

[1:58:52] Voice 15: understanding well seriously there was an understanding it

[1:58:55] Voice 16: was that it wasn't anything

[1:58:56] Voice 15: anything structural yeah there was

[1:58:58] Voice 15: no had to be upgraded to today's 2024 didn't have to have a

[1:59:03] Voice 15: licensed builder we didn't have to or i mean you didn't have to have inspections at every stage it

[1:59:10] Voice 15: was basically as long as there was nothing structural it left you alone and it's the same

[1:59:14] Voice 15: school district which was i think why you had a lot of buy-in from the community and then the

[1:59:19] Voice 15: community and actually put in there's a lot of skin in this project from the community which

[1:59:24] Voice 7: Do

[1:59:25] Voice 15: you remember

[1:59:26] Voice 7: how many volunteers we had or volunteer hours?

[1:59:29] Voice 7: We

[1:59:29] Voice 4: had people, basically

[1:59:30] Voice 7: every aspect of the house had a volunteer effort into it.

[1:59:34] Voice 4: And the service provider took on all these different things.

[1:59:37] Voice 4: And nobody had their HBO certification.

[1:59:40] Voice 4: That's a revelation, right?

[1:59:42] Voice 4: Hold

[1:59:43] Voice 15: on to protection on this.

[1:59:44] Voice 4: Oh, yeah.

[1:59:45] Voice 4: No, my husband did.

[1:59:46] Voice 4: Oh, yeah.

[1:59:46] Voice 4: But

[1:59:46] Voice 15: he signed off on it.

[1:59:47] Voice 4: No, but he was like in charge.

[1:59:49] Voice 4: Yeah, I know.

[1:59:50] Voice 15: But he wasn't the.

[1:59:52] Voice 15: He hasn't been fired.

[1:59:53] Voice 16: He's not on your team.

[1:59:54] Voice 15: the yeah right right right yeah

[1:59:57] Voice 4: offering like the 2.10

[2:00:00] Voice 15: Yeah, the whole community was behind it. A lot of non-profiters contributed money to it.

[2:00:04] Voice 15: It

[2:00:04] Voice 4: was amazing. Yeah, it was the best. It was booked out so well. It was really exciting and

[2:00:08] Voice 4: such a lovely, feel-good project to be a part of. And I'm really happy with the result.

[2:00:14] Voice 7: And an

[2:00:15] Voice 7: example of what can happen when you can say to the community,

[2:00:18] Voice 7: this is our plan, this is what we're doing, this is when we're doing it.

[2:00:21] Voice 7: That's when the buy-in happens, I think, was

[2:00:23] Voice 5: the big one. It wasn't,

[2:00:24] Voice 7: we're going to do this down the road when we get through all of this stuff.

[2:00:29] Voice 5: yes it's i mean it's an amazing an amazing example of what can happen you've got a

[2:00:34] Voice 5: motivated community behind you and obviously a great pr person

[2:00:40] Voice 4: i was actually thinking about that with habitat because i haven't heard anything about habitats

[2:00:45] Voice 4: work in canada i've heard international stuff but i didn't even know habitat worked in canada

[2:00:49] Voice 4: until you just talked about it today so that's just just it sounds like an outside observation

[2:00:55] Voice 4: maybe that's something to start

[2:00:56] Voice 9: a little bit yeah because restore people don't associate with that

[2:01:04] Voice 9: yeah it's just a branding issue you also don't have to give them a prime minister

[2:01:08] Voice 9: if they haven't been in the presence

[2:01:12] Voice 5: any jenny carter any anybody have questions for about

[2:01:18] Voice 8: the future it was well done

[2:01:19] Voice 8: well

[2:01:20] Voice 5: done yeah i mean it is

[2:01:21] Voice 4: yeah it was really nice like paul brent sent us an email after it

[2:01:26] Voice 4: was that said like you know he was just so proud that this is the first example of an

[2:01:32] Voice 4: affordable housing project that has happened that's been built yeah

[2:01:36] Voice 5: and you guys made it

[2:01:38] Voice 5: happen and i i love it because i i go to other islands and i'm like all these things and bureaucracy

[2:01:44] Voice 5: proxy and blah blah blah and these guys did it because the community came together and you had

[2:01:50] Voice 5: yeah like some wonderful leadership there so thank you for doing that and providing this

[2:01:55] Voice 5: excellent example for others yeah good

[2:01:59] Voice 8: work you guys

[2:02:06] Voice 8: all right

[2:02:07] Voice 5: have a good cross-country meet

[2:02:14] Voice 5: So now we've got the Main Island Housing Society going to talk a little bit about their

[2:02:21] Voice 5: multi-family project and then their new housing navigator program.

[2:02:26] Voice 6: Housing navigator, yes.

[2:02:29] Voice 6: Thanks, Nerissa.

[2:02:30] Voice 6: It was nice to be invited to participate in this today.

[2:02:33] Voice 6: I think that most of the island knows what we're doing, so it was really hard for me

[2:02:37] Voice 6: to decide what I was going to put into my presentation.

[2:02:39] Voice 6: So, forgive me if you've heard it all before, but I'll certainly answer questions as we go.

[2:02:46] Voice 6: Just a little bit of history.

[2:02:48] Voice 6: Main Island Housing Society, it began in 2016 as a group of interested individuals in the community getting together on a casual basis, calling themselves the Main Island Housing Forum.

[2:02:58] Voice 6: So, it was a community getting together to talk about housing and what was needed on the island, what were the needs and how could we meet those needs.

[2:03:08] Voice 6: And then in 2018, the group decided that we needed to form a society.

[2:03:13] Voice 6: Someone said, you know, you have to be a society for at least five years before you get capital funding.

[2:03:18] Voice 6: So we did that.

[2:03:20] Voice 6: April 2018, we became the Main Island Housing Society.

[2:03:24] Voice 6: And in the fall of 2019, we received charitable status through the CRA.

[2:03:29] Voice 6: And that was a big event for us.

[2:03:31] Voice 6: And it really has helped us move forward.

[2:03:34] Voice 6: And we were looking for land.

[2:03:36] Voice 6: And we spent years tramping around the island looking for land, possibilities of might they sell, might they give, where can we go?

[2:03:45] Voice 6: And then in 2020, we were offered a donation of three acres of land.

[2:03:49] Voice 6: And that then started our rezoning process with the local trust committee.

[2:03:55] Voice 6: The land is at 375 Village Bay Road.

[2:03:59] Voice 6: It's now, the trail is running across the front of it.

[2:04:05] Voice 6: we completed multiple feasibility studies as has been assessed already it was not a it was

[2:04:14] Voice 6: a challenging process I think for everybody I think was new for everybody and we all learned

[2:04:22] Voice 6: through this process I think we had three community meetings and two public hearings

[2:04:27] Voice 6: And in 2022, we received the rezoning from the Local Islands Trust.

[2:04:35] Voice 6: And it's zoning, I think, for multifamily.

[2:04:37] Voice 6: That's just the rezoning on it.

[2:04:41] Voice 6: And through that rezoning

[2:04:43] Voice 6: process, we developed Section 219 Covenant and a housing agreement.

[2:04:48] Voice 6: And what that does is it provides for that piece of property to be affordable rental housing in perpetuity.

[2:04:56] Voice 6: And it also allows for only 10 units of affordable housing, 10 units of housing, which was the most that the official community plan would allow at the time.

[2:05:07] Voice 6: And we know, as we've talked, that that's not nearly enough.

[2:05:11] Voice 6: And so all of these housing solutions are really important to then create some solutions to the housing need on the island.

[2:05:18] Voice 6: we submitted an application to the ministry of transportation infrastructure for subdivision

[2:05:24] Voice 6: in january of 2023 and what so just to put this into perspective it's a 10 acre piece of property

[2:05:33] Voice 6: that is being divided into three parcels and the main island housing society will be the recipient

[2:05:41] Voice 6: of three acre parcel and a new three acre parcel is being developed through this process as well

[2:05:47] Voice 6: as the four acre which has the original homestead on it and those two other parcels are going to be

[2:05:58] Voice 6: owned by the owner there's no plans as far as we know to dispense with those other

[2:06:03] Voice 6: two pieces of property so we are in the final administrative stages of the

[2:06:11] Voice 6: the subdivision process and once that once we get the approvals then the all of the easements and

[2:06:22] Voice 6: all of the covenants and there are many of them now it's way more than just the housing agreement

[2:06:27] Voice 6: and the one section 209 covenant because there's there's a lot of factors involved in this

[2:06:32] Voice 6: subdivision they all get teased off and and put onto the title of the exact piece of property

[2:06:39] Voice 6: that they pertain to and we hope that that's going to be completed by the end of the year

[2:06:45] Voice 6: and that will be a huge milestone for us in addition to what i've just talked about about

[2:06:59] Voice 6: the covenant there are also some protective covenants wording on on our property um

[2:07:06] Voice 6: or our potential property that speaks to the protecting the ecological makeup of the of the

[2:07:13] Voice 6: property. There is a building area, building zone, and outside of that building zone, there will be

[2:07:20] Voice 6: no allowable extra buildings. That's it, it has to be maintained. And in addition to that,

[2:07:26] Voice 6: we have covenanted that we will protect heritage and wildlife trees, may have been identified,

[2:07:34] Voice 6: that's in our covenant attached to the title, and that the land that was damaged because of some

[2:07:43] Voice 6: Some previous logging will be remediated with a huge process.

[2:07:49] Voice 6: It will be remediated so that it can be more permeable for surface water to be absorbed.

[2:07:57] Voice 6: And then also that those pieces of property that right now, piece of land that right now doesn't absorb any water, it also doesn't develop much vegetation.

[2:08:08] Voice 6: vegetation. So once that process is completed, then there will be more vegetation growing

[2:08:13] Voice 6: in that. So this process will enhance the ecological value of that property. We've covenanted

[2:08:23] Voice 6: that we will move into a practice of creating a cedar wetland remediation forest out of

[2:08:32] Voice 6: that. And that goes on to a portion of that middle lot that I've talked about that's being

[2:08:36] Voice 6: created. So the building areas on those two newly developed lots are determined by covenant

[2:08:44] Voice 6: and the property that's outside of those building areas is protected from further development.

[2:08:49] Voice 6: So that was a very good agreement that we all came up with. And we've talked about funding

[2:08:55] Voice 6: for affordable market rent, affordable rent, that the cost to develop non-market housing

[2:09:04] Voice 6: must be kept low to allow for the operational cost of the housing to be met through the affordable

[2:09:10] Voice 6: rental charges. And it depends on governmental and non-governmental grants, as Nerissa has put up

[2:09:18] Voice 6: there, as well as no interest loans and non-profits who are building housing or have access to those

[2:09:24] Voice 6: financial instruments. Pre-development funding is very challenging to get, but the capital cost

[2:09:36] Voice 6: The capital funding, sorry, I'm a little lost here.

[2:09:43] Voice 6: We're also, because we're affordable rental developments,

[2:09:46] Voice 6: we're eligible for takeout mortgages with reduced mortgage rates.

[2:09:49] Voice 6: So those are all ways that we keep the building costs low

[2:09:52] Voice 6: so that we can charge lower rents.

[2:09:56] Voice 6: Additional ways to keep the costs low is we're a volunteer board.

[2:10:02] Voice 6: We do a lot of the work ourselves.

[2:10:04] Voice 6: There is no profit margin for non-profit housing,

[2:10:07] Voice 6: so we don't have to increase the costs.

[2:10:10] Voice 6: We are the developer.

[2:10:12] Voice 6: We don't have to have a profit margin on that.

[2:10:15] Voice 6: And that keeps the cost down, the land is donated

[2:10:17] Voice 6: and we have community involvement and donation.

[2:10:21] Voice 6: That's very important for us.

[2:10:23] Voice 6: Low, we lower the cost through designing cluster housing,

[2:10:27] Voice 6: multi-unit buildings using modular construction,

[2:10:29] Voice 6: which allows for the building elements

[2:10:31] Voice 6: to be completed off island

[2:10:32] Voice 6: and does not depend on importing workers and materials.

[2:10:35] Voice 6: When we started, we thought we would use a lot of the local craftsmen to build our, you know, use the local people to create this project.

[2:10:49] Voice 6: But it's not, first of all, everybody's really busy.

[2:10:53] Voice 6: Secondly, it's not as cost effective for us to do that.

[2:10:57] Voice 6: It's much more cost effective to have them build it in a

[2:10:59] Voice 6: factory and bring it on the island as a modular building.

[2:11:03] Voice 6: um the rent i'm sure everybody wants to know what the rent is and how you get into this

[2:11:10] Voice 6: how you get into this 10 unit so the rent depends on who's doing the funding i think you have that

[2:11:19] Voice 6: in there it depends on who's doing the funding who's offering the capital funding so we have

[2:11:26] Voice 6: bc housing is a major funder in british columbia cmhc is another major funder of capital builds

[2:11:34] Voice 6: Federation of Canadian Municipalities is another funder and we intend to apply and have applied

[2:11:41] Voice 6: already we will apply again to layer it's called layering the funding and each one of those CMHC

[2:11:48] Voice 6: and BC Housing has different rules about what affordability is and how you create an affordable

[2:11:53] Voice 6: project so BC Housing for example has a mixed rental model where 20% of the units has to be

[2:11:59] Voice 6: The shelter rates, which is income assistance or guaranteed income supplements for seniors,

[2:12:04] Voice 6: 50% are rent geared to income and 30% can be market.

[2:12:10] Voice 6: And that's how they create, that's the rental structure to create a viable operation.

[2:12:18] Voice 6: CMHC does it a little differently.

[2:12:20] Voice 6: They have a criteria that 30% of the units have to be 80% lower than market rate.

[2:12:29] Voice 6: So I guess a little complicated when you start talking about

[2:12:32] Voice 6: how are we going to get all this money into our project

[2:12:34] Voice 6: and how do you make it work

[2:12:35] Voice 6: and how do you make the housing agreement work

[2:12:37] Voice 6: so that we can be flexible enough

[2:12:40] Voice 6: to accommodate those kinds of differences.

[2:12:44] Voice 6: But we have managed to do that.

[2:12:47] Voice 6: We've got a fabulous housing developer.

[2:12:49] Voice 6: We're working with Wiser Projects

[2:12:51] Voice 6: and they've been with us ever since we started in 2018.

[2:12:58] Voice 6: The rents will set the rents as low as possible

[2:13:02] Voice 6: to support the main island rental community while allowing the society to meet the operational

[2:13:07] Voice 6: requirements so one of the things that happens is there's a housing income limit for people to

[2:13:13] Voice 6: have income for their household lower than that oh see that's that's the criterion of people who

[2:13:20] Voice 6: come in and it will change by the year so i can give you some numbers today but by the time we're

[2:13:26] Voice 6: built, those will be different. But just to give you an idea, the housing income limits

[2:13:34] Voice 6: for a rent guaranteed to income, which is 30% of people's income, for

[2:13:42] Voice 6: those units, for

[2:13:43] Voice 6: a one-bedroom, it's $65,000. That's what a single person or a couple, one-bedroom is

[2:13:49] Voice 6: for a single person or a couple. So that's for your seniors. We're intending for those

[2:13:55] Voice 6: for seniors. So that's the maximum that someone can earn. For a two-bedroom, for the rent geared

[2:14:04] Voice 6: to income, the portability, the maximum income is $78,000. For a three-bedroom, it's $87,500.

[2:14:13] Voice 6: But because you talked about having some market rents in there, there is still a housing income

[2:14:21] Voice 6: a limit for that and there it's higher of course because they're going to be paying a higher rent

[2:14:27] Voice 6: and it ranges from 84,000 for a one bedroom to 182,000 for a three bedroom and so the rents

[2:14:39] Voice 6: vary depending on the family doesn't it doesn't depend so much on unit a it depends on the family

[2:14:49] Voice 6: and if the constellation of the family changes and they need a bigger unit then they move into

[2:14:53] Voice 6: into another unit, and depending on their income,

[2:14:58] Voice 6: that's the rent they pay.

[2:14:59] Voice 6: And as David had said, for affordability units,

[2:15:03] Voice 6: the rent geared to income units,

[2:15:04] Voice 6: you take an income tax return every year

[2:15:07] Voice 6: to ensure that you're charging the right amount for that.

[2:15:10] Voice 6: And for the market rents, it goes up according

[2:15:12] Voice 6: to the rental, the criterion for increasing rent.

[2:15:21] Voice 6: So in terms of rents, when you're looking at deep subsidy,

[2:15:27] Voice 6: Deep subsidy, it's $500.

[2:15:29] Voice 13: If

[2:15:30] Voice 6: folks are on income assistance, it's $500 for a single person.

[2:15:35] Voice 6: Affordable market for a one-bedroom is $750.

[2:15:39] Voice 6: That's

[2:15:40] Voice 8: today.

[2:15:42] Voice 6: We don't expect to be built for a little while.

[2:15:47] Voice 6: So those numbers are going to go up.

[2:15:49] Voice 6: But market rent, market rent is set at $1,700.

[2:15:52] Voice 6: that's what it is for um southern vancouver island non-urban that's i think what we're

[2:16:02] Voice 6: finding is happening here on the island any rents are going up our rents are reflecting

[2:16:07] Voice 6: what's happening on the vancouver island which uh so finally it's a surprise to me

[2:16:13] Voice 6: um a two-bedroom affordable market uh sorry affordable rent would be like 988 for a two-bedroom

[2:16:20] Voice 6: market rent is $2,400 and it goes up like that three bedrooms $1,300 market rent was $2,900

[2:16:28] Voice 6: that was just a guess on the island three bedrooms are way more expensive than that

[2:16:34] Voice 6: so that's just to give you an idea of what the rents might be we're building

[2:16:40] Voice 6: we're building cluster housing reducing the cost to build by building we're building

[2:16:51] Voice 6: two duplexes and two triplexes so we were building five we've changed the site plan

[2:16:58] Voice 6: we're building four buildings now and so what that allows us to do it reduces the run of the

[2:17:03] Voice 6: utility connections so it reduces the cost there's lots of shared walls fewer foundations

[2:17:08] Voice 6: shared roof elements increased energy efficiencies less siding less roofing less windows it reduces

[2:17:16] Voice 6: the cost. And we talked about that we're building this for seniors as well as the

[2:17:24] Voice 6: workforce and family. We have received funding to continue our pre-development

[2:17:29] Voice 6: activities getting to building permit stage and that's pretty exciting and if

[2:17:37] Voice 6: all goes well we hope to break ground in 2026. Does

[2:17:42] Voice 6: that sound right David?

[2:17:52] Voice 15: I know you

[2:17:54] Voice 6: do. Get in touch. I should tell you, actually, we didn't put it on here. I'm

[2:18:00] Voice 6: just going to go to the housing navigator. Get in touch with us. Our email is mihousingsociety.com.

[2:18:08] Voice 6: mail.com. No, yes, mail.com. Our website is mainislandhouseofsociety.com. And I'd like

[2:18:21] Voice 6: to introduce now our housing navigators. We have Jennifer Elizabeth here, our new housing

[2:18:26] Voice 6: navigator. Thank you. We're happy to have Jennifer working with us. This is our first

[2:18:35] Voice 6: staff, our first paid staff to help move the projects out into the community and alleviate

[2:18:41] Voice 6: some of the pressure on the board.

[2:18:43] Voice 6: So it's really good that we've got you there.

[2:18:45] Voice 6: Jennifer comes to us with a background in law.

[2:18:48] Voice 6: She has experience with criminal, marital and civil law,

[2:18:55] Voice 6: as well as dispute resolution

[2:18:56] Voice 6: with Employment Standards Branch, Human Rights Tribunal.

[2:18:59] Voice 6: And Jennifer represented Canada

[2:19:01] Voice 6: in the largest class action settlement in Canadian history,

[2:19:05] Voice 6: which addressed the legacy of damage

[2:19:09] Voice 6: caused by the Indian residential school abuse.

[2:19:13] Voice 6: Very happy to have Jennifer with her experience here.

[2:19:16] Voice 6: Jennifer also has experience in developing and managing rental properties

[2:19:19] Voice 6: and resort locations.

[2:19:21] Voice 6: As well, Jennifer has firsthand experience in firefighting housing on Maine,

[2:19:26] Voice 6: but she came in September.

[2:19:28] Voice 6: So that's an eye-opener.

[2:19:30] Voice 6: There really was very little.

[2:19:35] Voice 6: So the vision of the Housing Navigator Program was to support the residents

[2:19:39] Voice 6: of Main Island to create affordable housing solutions,

[2:19:42] Voice 6: some of which may be the fastest to initiate

[2:19:45] Voice 6: and the least costly.

[2:19:48] Voice 6: This program allows us to expand the scope of our operations

[2:19:53] Voice 6: and to be able to contribute more into the community

[2:19:56] Voice 6: in a broader way.

[2:19:57] Voice 6: We're hoping to create rental units

[2:20:00] Voice 6: that might be the quickest to create and the least costly.

[2:20:07] Voice 6: Too bad Brian left, I'm sure she'd have lots of questions about this.

[2:20:17] The

[2:20:19] Voice 6: Housing Navigator role will be of assistance in developing secondary suites, secondary

[2:20:24] Voice 6: cottages according to the Main Island Land Use By-laws.

[2:20:27] Voice 6: Working with Narissa and helping to roll out some of those programs into the community.

[2:20:34] Voice 6: we think of it as filling some of the gaps

[2:20:38] Voice 6: for land use and the approving bodies

[2:20:43] Voice 6: have rules and regulations

[2:20:45] Voice 6: and the community would like to create some solutions

[2:20:50] Voice 6: and how do I do it?

[2:20:51] Voice 6: And so that is one of the roles

[2:20:53] Voice 6: I think that Jennifer will be able to fill in here.

[2:20:55] Voice 6: And we're looking forward

[2:20:57] Voice 6: to encouraging short-term vacation rentals

[2:20:59] Voice 6: to convert into long-term housing.

[2:21:01] Voice 6: Is that another one like this?

[2:21:03] Voice 6: Maybe.

[2:21:05] Voice 6: and encouraging owners of vacant homes to rent their accommodations full-time.

[2:21:11] Voice 6: We've talked about Jennifer and the housing navigator liaising with the approving bodies

[2:21:16] Voice 6: and assisting homeowners to create additional dwelling units,

[2:21:20] Voice 6: understanding the approvals and regulatory processes that are put into place by Island Health.

[2:21:26] Voice 6: We talked about Island Health being involved with the waste management.

[2:21:31] Voice 6: They're also involved with water.

[2:21:34] Voice 6: the CRD and its trust and we're hoping that the Navigator will keep current on funding

[2:21:41] Voice 6: assistance opportunities being about federally, provincially. We've talked about some of those

[2:21:46] Voice 6: and regionally like the Secondary Suite Incentive Program, the CRD program and the other local

[2:21:53] Voice 6: trust committee housing initiatives. These are really exciting opportunities for our

[2:21:58] Voice 6: community uh the how we we envision that the housing navigator can provide support in the

[2:22:05] Voice 6: beginning stages of someone considering developing an accessory dwelling unit the kind of a thing do

[2:22:11] Voice 6: i need is my septic system big enough what about

[2:22:14] Voice 6: the water do i have to do anything for the water

[2:22:17] Voice 6: is there a regulation that i have to do water catchment what are the additional costs how does

[2:22:21] Voice 6: my property my property have the required zoning that sort of thing that this can be a first stop

[2:22:28] Voice 6: when someone's really thinking about it before they start talking to contractors and and going

[2:22:34] Voice 6: too far down the road of course we're not taking the place of Nerissa never could so we'll be

[2:22:40] Voice 6: referring to you as producing my workflow now I

[2:22:43] Voice 16: like that yeah um

[2:22:49] Voice 6: we're the housing navigator

[2:22:53] Voice 6: will be familiar with the land use bylaws and processes they're confusing I know they're up

[2:22:57] Voice 6: on the website but you know it's hard to get there um we can help landowners fill out the

[2:23:05] Voice 6: forms the application forms if they want to go through the process themselves that's that can be

[2:23:11] Voice 6: a a benefit for the landowner but you know we know that once you get down to that road of

[2:23:17] Voice 6: going through a rezoning or a or a variance process or something like that you often will have

[2:23:26] Voice 6: a contractor who does a third-party application as an agent. But we're not intending to change

[2:23:32] Voice 6: the process at all, we're just trying to help demystify the process a little bit.

[2:23:40] Voice 6: As part of this program, we'll be developing a web-based resource library that folks can have

[2:23:46] Voice 6: access to. It will include a toolkit for residents to use, information that's useful, links. We don't

[2:23:54] Voice 6: want to duplicate the information that's on there, but create the links, put the links

[2:23:58] Voice 6: on so that people can access it on somebody else's website, or the local trust or the

[2:24:06] Voice 6: Islands Trust.

[2:24:09] Voice 6: Also, we've talked about developing a list of contractors. Now, just to be very clear,

[2:24:15] Voice 6: this won't be a referral, this won't be a vetted list, it would be a list of on-island

[2:24:20] Voice 6: as well as off-island contractors who would like to be on the list. So they would apply,

[2:24:24] Voice 6: like we'll put their name on but it's not anything that we would endorse we don't endorse these

[2:24:28] Voice 6: people it'd be very clear that that's that's our role there is just to create the resource

[2:24:36] Voice 6: and the third arm the third arm for this program is property management services rental property

[2:24:43] Voice 6: management uh service we think that will be providing some security to both on island and

[2:24:53] Voice 6: and off-island landowners who have dwelling units that they would like to rent.

[2:24:59] Voice 6: And the housing navigator will assist with creating a rental listing,

[2:25:03] Voice 6: rental listing management, the tenant selection process,

[2:25:07] Voice 6: vetting renters, providing credit checks, assessing references,

[2:25:11] Voice 6: providing property move-in and move-out inspections, periodic property checks,

[2:25:16] Voice 6: management of tenant relations.

[2:25:19] Voice 6: And Jennifer, with her background in mediation,

[2:25:22] Voice 6: There can be landlord tenancy advocacy dispute resolution and referral to the tenancy branch

[2:25:27] Voice 6: is appropriate.

[2:25:30] Voice 6: We talk about community engagement.

[2:25:32] Voice 6: So there's that linkage and one of the things that some of the things that Jennifer's talked

[2:25:36] Voice 6: about already is providing some seminars or events about housing related topics such as

[2:25:45] Voice 6: human rights and landlord tenant relationships, dispute resolution tools, recommended documents

[2:25:51] Voice 6: for tenancy relationship.

[2:25:52] Voice 6: For example, the benefits of having a rental agreement.

[2:25:55] Voice 6: I think a lot of rentals happen very casually

[2:25:59] Voice 6: and then there's no backstop if something goes sideways.

[2:26:03] Voice 6: A conditions inspection report, other documents.

[2:26:08] Voice 6: And I'm just wondering if there are any other topics

[2:26:10] Voice 6: that someone could come up with

[2:26:11] Voice 6: that you'd like to have a workshop on, let us know.

[2:26:18] Voice 6: So the housing navigator position is intended

[2:26:20] Voice 6: to fill the gaps between the programs

[2:26:22] Voice 6: that are being developed by our governing bodies

[2:26:25] Voice 6: and the rollout of those programs into the community.

[2:26:27] Voice 6: It's intended to increase the number of rental units available

[2:26:30] Voice 6: in the shortest possible time

[2:26:32] Voice 6: and to provide security to owners of underutilized properties

[2:26:36] Voice 6: to consider renting their properties,

[2:26:37] Voice 6: knowing that there will be a rental property management assistant to do so.

[2:26:43] Voice 6: Jennifer can be reached at Maine Island.

[2:26:45] Voice 6: Now it's mihousingnavigator at gmail.com.

[2:26:50] Voice 6: We'll put that up on our website.

[2:26:53] Voice 6: yeah so that's that's what i've got for you happy to answer any questions

[2:26:58] Voice 13: well thank you all for welcoming me to the community i look forward to touching base

[2:27:03] Voice 13: and working with some of you uh it's been a very interesting experience as it's been alluded to

[2:27:07] Voice 13: navigating the rental market first of all where do i look for listings and i did find my place

[2:27:13] Voice 13: first place on craigslist they have two units there i've bounced back and forth they are not

[2:27:18] Voice 13: up to code the amount of deficiencies have been excessive um and then i've heard some ideas about

[2:27:24] Voice 13: let's push these buildings to try living in them if they're not properly integrated this is not

[2:27:29] Voice 13: properly insulated there's no fire heating it's all you know it's wasteful right so some of these

[2:27:35] Voice 13: suggestions in they're good in principle but being on the rental side as a tenant going through them

[2:27:40] Voice 13: it's been horrendous and the

[2:27:42] Voice 13: lack of agreement and being informal and friendly and i know better

[2:27:46] Voice 13: I'm a lawyer by background and even then I err on that side and there's something you know when

[2:27:50] Voice 13: people sign on the dotted line and I encourage you to do it like with your hand instead of

[2:27:55] Voice 13: electronically there's some kind of higher level of commitment and not being a landlord isn't for

[2:28:01] Voice 13: everybody so we're pitching the secondary swing and the other ideas it's work it's our legal

[2:28:06] Voice 13: relationship you have to take it seriously there's obligations both ways in terms of even in terms of

[2:28:11] Voice 13: personality you want somebody that fits because it affects your life they're living in close

[2:28:15] Voice 13: proximity either in your house or right next to your house so there's lots of things i'm very

[2:28:20] Voice 13: excited to be here it's been i've been here two months uh housing has been such a big stressor and

[2:28:26] Voice 13: my me personally uh i've converted an airbnb into a long-term so that's what i've done

[2:28:32] Voice 13: and i've done this in uh two other countries and probably about four other times including

[2:28:37] Voice 13: i converted a carriage home on vrbo into a long-term record oh that's we'll look forward

[2:28:43] Voice 6: And

[2:28:44] Voice 13: the other one I'm really excited about is the teacher.

[2:28:46] Voice 13: It's finding, I'm really big into preserving and protecting.

[2:28:50] Voice 13: And so finding things that are already there and turning them into something.

[2:28:54] Voice 13: So that would be like the teacher or the lighthouse that we kind of vaguely

[2:28:58] Voice 13: mentioned in our talk. So that's, you know, where my heart is, of course,

[2:29:03] Voice 13: you know, we have to develop to support the community too.

[2:29:07] Voice 3: So

[2:29:07] Voice 13: thank you very much for having us.

[2:29:10] Voice 13: And that was an amazing.

[2:29:15] Voice 12: questions

[2:29:15] Voice 6: anybody has about our project anything that i you'd like to know that i haven't talked

[2:29:20] Voice 6: about you

[2:29:22] Voice 16: talked about it but i'm curious about the funding and the rental

[2:29:27] Voice 14: being late the rent price is being late to the funding that you're getting

[2:29:31] Voice 16: is that like

[2:29:31] Voice 14: a one-time funding that

[2:29:33] Voice 16: will then kick off the rental program or you need to align that

[2:29:37] Voice 16: you know

[2:29:38] Voice 6: it's very complex that question is very complex and the answer is also

[2:29:43] Voice 6: Very complex. And we continue to develop pro formas where we look at the costs and the costs of the grants and the equity that we put into, we put into it, the more equity we put into it, the less we'll have to.

[2:30:00] Voice 6: ORO is a take-home mortgage in the very end.

[2:30:02] Voice 6: You get grants to build, but then you also have some mortgages.

[2:30:06] Voice 6: And so the more we put into it in the very beginning,

[2:30:09] Voice 6: the lower the mortgage is, the easier it's easier to operate it,

[2:30:13] Voice 6: and then the rents can be a little lower.

[2:30:16] Voice 6: So it's very much related.

[2:30:19] Voice 6: However, those units, the people who will be eligible for rent

[2:30:27] Voice 6: I'm here to income will pay 30% of their income.

[2:30:36] Voice 8: That's a tough one.

[2:30:37] Voice 5: That's a tough one.

[2:30:38] Voice 5: Yeah.

[2:30:39] Voice 5: Yeah.

[2:30:40] Voice 16: Yeah.

[2:30:40] Voice 5: And yeah,

[2:30:41] Voice 5: finding that funding opportunity.

[2:30:43] Voice 5: So yeah,

[2:30:44] Voice 5: it's a big,

[2:30:45] Voice 5: it's a big one.

[2:30:46] Voice 5: So thanks for the work that you've done so far on that project.

[2:30:49] Voice 5: And thanks for bringing Jennifer.

[2:30:50] Voice 5: Jennifer is a huge asset to your community.

[2:30:52] Voice 5: We've only had one conversation,

[2:30:54] Voice 5: but what I learned in that,

[2:30:56] Voice 5: and what I think you've all just learned right now is she's a very

[2:30:58] Voice 5: strategic and creative thinker.

[2:31:00] Voice 5: around the house, find those solutions that are, are, are,

[2:31:04] Voice 5: you know, already potentially existing. So thank you so much.

[2:31:08] Voice 5: And thanks for everybody.

[2:31:11] Voice 5: Two more.

[2:31:13] Voice 5: Oh, sorry.

[2:31:16] Voice 13: Well,

[2:31:18] Voice 5: what I want to separate if we have, if you were here till

[2:31:22] Voice 5: 430. So I was going to suggest is because we've got individuals

[2:31:27] Voice 5: tools here that you may not see again. Now and then and then

[2:31:32] Voice 5: spend the half an hour with those that you may have

[2:31:35] Voice 5: specific questions.

[2:31:39] Voice 6: Oh, I can't stay past 415. Yeah.

[2:32:21] Voice 8: Thank you.

[2:32:29] Voice 2: Thank you.

Mayne Island Local Trust Committee 
Community Workshop on Housing 
October 28, 2024 FINAL Page 1 of 4 
 
Mayne Island Local Trust Committee 
Minutes of Community Housing Workshop 
 
Date:  
Location:  
October 28, 2024 
Mayne Island Agricultural Hall 
430 Fernhill Road, Mayne Island, BC 
 
Members Present: Tobi Elliott, Chair 
 David Maude, Local Trustee 
 Jeanine Dodds, Local Trustee 
  
Staff Present: Narissa Chadwick, Island Planner  
 Lisa Millard, Meeting Administrator/Recorder (electronic) 
  
Others Present: Justine Starke, Manager of Southern Gulf Islands Service Delivery for the 
Capital Regional District 
  
 There were approximately thirteen (13) members of the public present 
 
1. WELCOME 
Chair Elliott opened the workshop at 1:30 p.m. She acknowledged that the gathering was held in 
territory of the Coast Salish First Nations and welcomed attendees and speakers. 
2. COMMUNITY WORKSHOP ON HOUSING OPTIONS 
Island Planner Chadwick provided a presentation and highlighted the following: 
 Elements of affordable housing within the Local Trust Area include permitted land uses, 
funding, ownership models, governmental regulations, and community housing groups 
 Local Trust Committee looks at Official Community Plan policies to align with zoning that can 
support housing 
 The Housing Action Plan looks at expanding flexible housing options, adapting zoning to 
allow housing in areas that currently don’t allow it, increasing areas where secondary suites 
are allowed, permitting additional dwelling units on smaller lots, expanding permissions to 
rezone non-market housing, allowing rezoning for modular home villages and increasing 
opportunities for non-profit housing societies 
 Suitable land analysis mapping takes into consideration environmentally sensitive areas, 
water availability, and steep slopes 
 Islands Trust regulates land use and works in collaboration with other agencies and 
governments that have authorities around housing development and regulations 
 Zoning amendments can be made to support a variety of approaches to housing including 
cooperative housing, collective ownership, and strata ownership 
 
A D O P T E D 

 
Mayne Island Local Trust Committee 
Community Workshop on Housing 
October 28, 2024 FINAL Page 2 of 4 
Justine Starke, Manager of Southern Gulf Islands Service Delivery for the Capital Regional 
District provided a presentation and spoke to the following: 
 Community Economic Sustainability Commission has identified the need for affordable 
housing as one of the biggest obstacles to the economic future of the Gulf Islands and is 
working to develop a housing strategy for Southern Gulf Islands 
 There is a shortage of housing for the diversity of the population and the demographic 
makeup of the community 
 Bringing in tradespeople and supplies and having to build water and sewer systems creates 
higher building costs 
 Capital Regional District has created a rural housing program 
 It is necessary to work across jurisdictions to bring a whole government approach to 
solutions. This involves advocacy to the province to elevate the interests of small rural 
communities 
 Need to support non-profit sector’s efforts to build affordable housing subsidized with 
government funding, controlled by a housing agreement, with rent tied to the income of the 
residents 
 Capital Regional District Rural Housing Program, in partnership with the Southern Gulf 
Islands Tourism, has provided funding for a coordinator to support groups that are trying to 
deliver housing to navigate the different government agencies and administer the 
deliverables of the program 
 Capital Regional District is developing an accessory dwelling unit incentive program that 
would be combined with the provincial government’s secondary suite incentive program 
 Capital Regional District will be providing funding for pre-development and infrastructure 
costs to the non-profit housing sector 
 Each government can go further by working within their own authority and then moving the 
work to the next level of authority 
 
The following comments were noted: 
 Bare land strata consists of individually owned dwellings on one property with a shared 
strata ownership of the land 
 There has been no uptake on building additional units or secondary suites due to increased 
costs associated with new building code standards, provincial incentives require a five-year 
rental period at below market rental rates, and the requirement to complete an owner 
builder course to build a dwelling yourself 
 Pre-fabricated and modular homes can be considered a viable alternative until changes to 
legislation allow tiny homes or different standards of alternative dwelling units 
 Building code should have a standardized affordable cottage in a simple design 
 Regional exceptions to the building code can be requested and local governments can 
advocate for these exceptions 
 Many seniors want to downsize to small homes and stay on the island 
 Amenity zoning could be created in suitable areas to allow communities of smaller homes 
and the process is to first amend the Official Community Plan to support the zoning and 
then an applicant would apply to rezone a parcel of land 
 Suitability for increased density would be based on water and septic capacity and 
consideration of other environmental factors 

 
Mayne Island Local Trust Committee 
Community Workshop on Housing 
October 28, 2024 FINAL Page 3 of 4 
 If zoning allows a greater number of units those units might not be specifically designated 
for one demographic, such as seniors, so that the zoning does not need to be changed for 
other demographics in the future 
 Many people would consider selling their existing home to move to smaller, single level 
housing and this would create more housing stock 
 A growth threshold analysis was completed and factors to consider regarding growth are 
demographic shifts and potential loss of community unless ways to support housing for 
service workers is found 
 Suitable land analysis gathers data showing areas that are more suited for higher density as 
well as areas that are less suitable 
 
Habitat for Humanity Director of Land Development and Safety & Facilities Coordinator David 
Gregory provided a presentation and highlighted the following: 
 Habitat for Humanity is a not-for-profit organization offering home ownership held by two 
mortgages with payment amounts set at maximum of 30% of resident’s income 
 Ownership allows families to build home equity 
 Mortgage qualification criteria includes citizenship or permanent residency, ability to make 
payments, and provision of up to five-hundred hours of work 
 Challenges include raising funds, lack of government support, and land donations 
 Land donors receive a tax receipt 
 Have had discussions with a barging company about potential to bring homes onto the Gulf 
Islands but require zoning and property for said homes 
 Zoning and property are both necessary in order to bring a Habitat for Humanity project to 
the Gulf Islands 
 
Mayne Island School Parent Advisory Council (PAC) Members Lauren Underhill and Jackie 
Peterson spoke to the success of a project undertaken to provided housing for teachers and 
highlighted the following: 
 Capital Regional District owned an old building on the school property and the School 
District allowed rental housing in the building 
 To renovate the building the PAC received a grant-in-aid from the Regional District, hired a 
project manager, and undertook a fundraising campaign while local builders, architects, and 
building supply companies contributed expertise and materials 
 Regional District owns the building and holds the rental funds for maintenance and 
upgrades 
 Successes of the project include cooperation between the School and Regional Districts, 
infrastructure was already in place, land did not need to be acquired, and the community 
was committed and involved 
 
Deborah Goldman of the Mayne Island Housing Society provided a presentation and highlighted 
the following: 
 A group of community members began talking about housing needs and formed a society 
which subsequently attained charitable status 
 Society was offered a donation of three acres of land that was originally part of a ten acre 
parcel and the other six acres were retained by the property owner 
 A covenant and housing agreement providing affordable rental housing was developed and it 
is attached to the land in perpetuity 

 
Mayne Island Local Trust Committee 
Community Workshop on Housing 
October 28, 2024 FINAL Page 4 of 4 
 Covenants also speak to protecting ecological aspects of the property 
 Applied to rezone the land for multifamily use for ten dwelling units 
 Funding for affordable non market-rental housing is dependant on governmental and other 
agency grants, pre-development funding, and reduced mortgage rates 
 Society has explored ways to keep costs low including use of modular construction 
 Not-for-profit society does not need to build profit margins into budget 
 Rental rates will depend on the rental model of the organization that provides the capital 
funding 
 There will be an income maximum limit to qualify for rent geared to income which will 
change annually and income limits for units rented at market rates 
 Building model will be cluster housing featuring duplexes and triplexes 
 The Mayne Island Housing Society has hired a Housing Navigator and the role will focus on: 
o encouraging owners of vacant homes to rent their homes 
o encouraging home owners to create additional housing units 
o keeping current on funding programs and availability 
o familiarity with land use bylaws and processes that can help landowner navigate 
process of rezoning to build additional dwelling units 
o developing web based information portal for residents 
o providing rental property management services and property checks 
o management of tenant relations and dispute resolution 
3. CLOSING 
The community workshop ended at 4:00 p.m. 
 
_________________________ 
Tobi Elliott, Chair 
 
Certified Correct: 
 
_________________________ 
Lisa Millard, Meeting Administrator/Recorder