The Town of Lake Cowichan will need almost 800 new housing units in the next 20 years, council learned at their meeting on Dec. 18.
Earlier in 2024 year contract planner James Van Hemert was hired to study Lake Cowichan to determine how best to increase the town’s rental capacity. He presented a report on the town's interim housing needs assessment, a requirement under the province's Bill 44. The town's needs are broken down into five year and 20 year timeframes. According to Van Hemert, the requirement for the town is 777 dwelling units over the next 20 years. That works out 179 dwelling units over a five-year period.
"In the previous assessment that was done a few years ago we had a five-year requirement for 172 dwelling units, 72 which had to be one bedroom, 40 two-bedrooms, and 60 units with three bedrooms," said Van Hemert. "There was a very high emphasis on one-bedroom units. We also know that there is a high need for rental so we have been promoting this and it will be even further promoted through the housing accelerator fund grant that we received from the federal government which builds on that previous assessment."
Van Hemert, who worked alongside the Advisory Planning Commission, said they were able to save a lot of time and money through using the provincial methodology with the assistance of UBC's online Housing Needs Assessment tool HART.
"So basically instead of using what is fairly a complicated methodology, the tool HART pretty much did that work for us," said Van Hemert. "The starting point for the next five or 20 years isn't today, it actually started in 2021, so our five year period is almost over."
The housing assessment breaks down into a list of components from A through E. A covers the extreme core housing need calculation, which according to Van Hemert works out to be 20 dwelling units, while component B is housing units tied to homelessness.
"We've been assigned a number of homeless people based on our percentage of the region and that number is just over 20 dwelling units," said Van Hemert.
Component C is 'suppressed household formation' which means households that are not being formed because people can't afford or find a place to live, while component D is 'anticipated household growth' representing population growth.
"Never in my professional career have I had to look at housing needs this way," said Van Hemert. "I look at growth rates, and household size, but the province is taking a very nuanced and in-depth look and they've concluded that we need 158 units because of the suppressed demand. They give us a lot of population growth because they are presuming that we are growing at the same rate as the rest of the region. We're not, and while that may change in the future, I've been looking for that for the past 15 years, and it hasn't yet happened. So the regional growth is going to be 30 per cent over the next 20 years, but we're probably going to grow at one per cent per year, so that's 22 per cent."
He also calculated the projected housing needs using the regional growth rates estimated by the province, rather than more local projections based on historical data. Those numbers show a need for 331 new housing units in five years, and 940 new units over 20 years.
In his presentation to council he also talked about the rental vacancy rate, ideally three per cent.
"That means that more units need to become available because the current vacancy rate regionally is 1.4 per cent," said Van Hemert. "That works out to be another 3.68 units, once all these numbers are added up they end up with 246 dwelling units."
Van Hemert said he was able to calculate the actual need for the next five years beginning now, instead of four years ago, and so far in this calendar year alone 31 dwelling units have been permitted.
"This is data that we have presented to the CHMC for our 'housing accelerator fund grant' because we have a target to increase our building permits by 20 per cent, and this year we are already there," said Van Hemert. "We are on track to meet that piece of the target but will have to keep doing that for the next few years to meet our proposal of 95 dwelling units over the course of 2024, 2025, and 2026 which works out to be 146 dwelling units over the next five years. I like that number, it's lower, but realistic and actually where we're headed."
The work that the Town of Lake Cowichan has done this year also includes their accessory dwelling unit (ADU) bylaw, their rental only housing bylaw, and the increased density on a single lot bylaw.
"This sets the stage for getting this all done," said Van Hemert. "My understanding is that the province is expecting council to accept receipt of this and then we send this off to the powers that be."
Regarding the rental only bylaw, Van Hemert said that the SureSpan property located at 15 South Shore Rd. is proceeding with an application, and that two small lots next to Lake Cowichan Secondary have been rezoned to R7 and rental only.
"We have an interested party and have already met with that person and they felt very positive with the action that the town has took," said Van Hemert
Mayor Tim McGonigle asked about the implemented accessory dwellings, which Van Hemert confirmed had been counted as part of the housing accelerator fund [application].
Council voted to approve the report.
