Reading Time: 1.5 Minutes
PARKSVILLE – One of the areas of focus for the Chamber over the last few years has been the lack of workforce housing in the Parksville-Qualicum Beach Region. To put things in perspective, the province wide rental accommodation accounts for 43 per cent of all housing with 57 per cent of housing being owner occupied. In the Parksville-Qualicum Beach Region 19 per cent of housing is rental, in the City of Parksville the number is 22 per cent and in the Town of Qualicum Beach only 11 per cent of all housing is rental.
Add to that the 43 per cent of individuals who earn less than $40,000.00 per year compared to the province as a whole where 36 per cent of individuals earn less than $40,000.00 per year and you can see why we believe workforce housing is an issue.
Of the landowners and developers I have spoken to about this, many are willing to build rental units, but are unwilling to go through a rezoning process which is necessary, as there is very limited land zoned multi-family.
All three local governments in the region have attempted to tackle the rental issue by creating by-laws to encourage the construction of basement suites and carriage houses, but there has been very little uptake by home-owners on either of these initiatives. We would encourage homeowners to take advantage of the opportunity to create additional income and potentially security through the creation of legal suites and carriage houses to improve the rental pool.
Over the long term, local government needs to do more than ease the creation of legal suites through the passage of bylaws. There are always ways to improve the efficiency of the re-zoning process and the development permit process in order to encourage investment in all development including the development of rental accommodation.
The big question; why does a business organization care? Healthy communities depend on a variety of housing options, single family, patio homes, suites apartments are all required to serve the needs of people living in a healthy community. We still hold that we need to “lower the average age and raise the average wage” in order to preserve the health and vitality of the region and if we want young people to come and work in our businesses and to serve the needs of our growing community, we have to provide all of the accommodation options and that means increasing the rental pool.
– Kim Burden is the Executive Director of the Parksville & District Chamber of Commerce. He can reached at kim@parksvillechamber.com.