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Nelson  

Two major social organizations receive city funds to further multi-unit project plans

CARES and SHARES alike

Nelson cares and shares even on its affordable housing grants.

Both of the city’s major social service organizations asked and (shall) received a $10,000 grant from the Affordable Housing Reserve Fund to continue pursuing worthwhile multi-unit projects in the city.

On Tuesday night during the first regular business meeting of the year for Nelson city council the elected officials approved a request from both SHARE Nelson and Nelson CARES for $10,000 from the fund to continue to prepare applications to B.C. Housing’s Community Housing Fund (CHF) for the project at 1306 and 1308 Fell Street (SHARE) and the project at 818 to 824 Front Street (CARES).

Development Services’ senior planner Ken Bourdeau said the nature of the requests was permitted by the policy.

“It is outlined in the report that both organizations have received pre-development funding from B.C. Housing which covers most of the costs associated with preparing an application,” he said.

“One of the few things that is not covered is the actual cost of a consultant to prepare the application.”

Although both CARES and SHARES were successful in the ask, Coun. Kate Tait sparked debate about how to engage the greater population of Nelson on providing feedback on housing projects while it is still in the planning stage.

She noted the degree of outrage and confusion during the recent Nelson recreation campus public meetings in which the CARES project — slated for a corner of the campus property — that had been vetted through public avenues and discussed openly in council for months, caused consternation amongst the citizens assembled.

Coun. Rik Logtenberg noted the dichotomy that an affordable housing project was something people wanted societally, but they didn’t necessarily want it in their neighbourhood.

“What I have been hearing from the community in terms of both of these projects that we are pursuing is the general response is, ‘Love it in theory, and I think it is important we have affordable housing, I just don’t want it here,’” he said.

“We need to do a better job of bringing the neighbourhoods and the community along. I think the (Official Community Plan) update is part of that but it is not sufficient.”

He said the city needs to go out to all of the stakeholders — such as the regional district and the business community — and get them to take some responsibility for the broader social issue of affordable housing.

Earlier in the meeting Mayor Janice Morrison pointed out that the regional district’s electoral areas surrounding the city did not advance or directly support multi-unit housing projects, but the rural areas should be involved.

But for the projects that are moving ahead in Nelson — of which, including the Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce’s housing project, there are three — the city needs to do more than the obligatory four readings on a bylaw and a public meeting, said Logtenberg.

“I would like to do a better job of communicating to the public that these things are coming, and as much as we can’t talk about some of the specifics for obvious reasons, we have to do a better job of preparing these neighbourhoods for what is coming,” he said.

The city is only unrolling what the community asked city council to do five years ago: housing, housing and more affordable housing, said Coun. Jesse Woodward.

“We have been in a zero vacancy rate for over 15 years. There is a housing crisis in this town,” he said. “We are doing what the consultants say to do; we are doing what the community says to do; we are doing what the province says to do. We are doing what we are supposed to be doing.

“But I feel like I always have it in my mind that if we aren’t constantly having (new) housing in the pipeline, every house, every unit in the town continues to rise and become more and more unaffordable … because we are already way behind.”

Tait concurred.

“What I am saying to folks is, ‘This is what you have asked for, this is what has been dictated to us by the federal government and the province,’” she said. “And we need to remind people that this is what we need, together, because right now it is creating is a lot of division is what I am seeing.”

Morrison said, despite the money already being spent on advancing the vision of the two projects, there was no guarantee that Nelson would get both or even one of the projects approved by B.C. Housing.

Picking on the policy

The Affordable Housing Policy provides guidance to city council on requests for financial support from the Affordable Housing Fund.

The request for $10,000 from each organization generally aligns with the policy, said Bourdeau, which allows council to use funds to hire consultants, conduct research and produce reports related to the Affordable Housing Strategy and subsequent reports such as the Housing Needs Report.

Both organizations have recently been approved by B.C. Housing for $250,000 each to complete pre-development work required as part of the application process.

“Even though pre-development funding has been received and covers a wide-range of pre-development costs, it does not cover the cost of consultants to prepare the CHF application,” said Bourdeau.

If both projects proceed, the lands will require rezoning, as multi-unit housing is not permitted in the current zoning for both properties.

“Furthermore, B.C. Housing is more likely to support applications where the appropriate zoning is in place before the application is submitted,” said Bourdeau.

B.C. Housing’s CHF program is expected to open for new applications in the first quarter of 2025.

Back to the future

On April 8, 2019 council approved funding for both organizations to complete similar work for projects at:

  • 102 Herridge Lane (formerly 520 Falls St.);
  • 805 Nelson Ave.; and
  • 205 Hall St.

These funding requests equaled $44,777.14.

On June 4, 2024 council approved:

  • $5,000 to SHARE Nelson to complete a feasibility study for an affordable housing project on city-owned land at 1306-1308 Fell St.; and
  • $5,000 to Nelson CARES to complete a feasibility study for an affordable housing project on city- and RDCK-owned land at 818-824 Front St., subject to the application being supported by the housing committee. The committee subsequently supported the application.

This funding was used for studies to determine project viability.



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