Victoria council is asking its staff to look at short-term measures to increase housing supply and affordability, including making it easier to create suites and increasing the number of suites allowed.
Staff have been asked to report back by the end of February on the effect of broadening house-conversion regulations to make it easier for more homeowners to convert rooms into suites; reducing parking requirements; allowing both a suite and garden home on a single property; and pushing the province to force more short-term rentals to convert to long-term housing.
Coun. Dave Thompson said the motion is a reaction to what he heard on the campaign trail this fall — that more housing is needed immediately.
The city can take smaller, simpler steps while it pursues “big pieces” of housing policy like the missing middle policy — which aims to make it easier to create multi-plexes and townhouses in single-family neighbourhoods — easing approvals for affordable housing projects and the establishment of villages and corridors, he said.
Thompson said the goal is to have staff analyze the ideas and report back with their recommendations. “Council would have the opportunity to fully discuss each and every one of these items when staff come back,” he said.
While some councillors argued the measures should be considered during strategic planning discussions, the majority of council saw no problem in getting what they called a head start on the process by having staff dig into it now.
“We are in a housing crisis and we were all hired by the people of Victoria to take bold action on our three interlocking crises — our climate crisis, our housing crisis and our homelessness crisis,” said Coun. Jeremy Caradonna. “And to my mind, we haven’t taken bold action on any of those things yet. We haven’t done anything bold on homelessness. We haven’t done anything bold on climate, and we haven’t done anything bold on housing. “It’s time to get moving on these things.”
Coun. Krista Loughton said she supported the motion out of concern for renters in the city, who face average one-bedroom rental rates of $1,800 a month.
“Six out of 10 people in Victoria are experiencing this right now,” she said. “The housing crisis is disproportionately harder on renters. This is a crisis, and we need to make the most impact as quickly as possible.”
Councillors Chris Coleman, Marg Gardiner and Stephen Hammond opposed the motion, saying it would pre-empt the stretegic planning and budgeting process that is to start within two weeks.
