Two Williams Lake city councillors will meet with other local government representatives in Vancouver at a housing summit to discuss the province’s ongoing housing crisis.
Sheila Boehm and Michael Moses will attend the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) event, taking place in Vancouver, Feb. 13 and 14.
The impetus for the summit is the province’s Homes for People housing plan released in 2023, which the UBCM website described as “ambitious” and “will have significant implications for local governments across B.C.”
Boehm and Moses are going to Richmond for the UBCM executive meeting Feb. 15 and 16 because Boehm is the president of the North Central Local Government Association and Moses is a director.
She said UBCM has offered to pay the accommodation costs for its executive to attend the summit, so the additional costs for the city would be Moses’s registration, council compensation and meals for two days.
Her costs are covered because she is president of NCLGA.
During the regular meeting Tuesday, Jan. 20, council gave approval for Moses to attend the summit.
Mayor Surinderpal Rathor said he was asked to attend as well, but declined.
“I don’t think we need to send three people,” he said.
Recently the city received a $220,358 grant from the provincial government to assist its efforts in delivering housing for people faster.
Williams Lake’s grant was part of a provincial roll-out of $51 million that went to 188 local governments within municipalities, regional districts and the Islands Trust.
The grant money can be used to update housing needs, reports, zoning bylaws, development cost charge and amenity cost charge bylaws and community plans by hiring consultants and staff and to do the research and community engagement as part of the development approvals process.
Coun. Scott Nelson brought a motion to the meeting asking council to thank the province for the funding and have city staff confirm the 2021 housing needs study done for the city and the Cariboo Regional District is updated.
When the housing report was released it noted the Central Cariboo would need 817 new units of housing by 2028.
Chief building inspector Reiner Nikolai provided the Tribune with numbers of housing building permits issued since the start of 2021.
Single Family dwellings – nine completed and two permits issued and undergoing construction
Multi-Family dwellings – one 4-unit building completed
Secondary suites – six completed and three permits issued and undergoing construction
Accessory dwelling units – one completed
Mobile homes – eight completed
Boitanio Mall – 82 units under permit and undergoing construction.
“The construction crew is working to complete the project. We expect it to ramp up full-scale in April,” Nikolai said of the Boitanio Mall housing project.
Nelson’s motion also recommended the city contract out to review the official community plan, which was adopted in 2011, align the city’s zoning bylaw with the OCP to pre-zone for the total amount of housing Williams Lake needs on a regular basis, streamline public hearings, pre-zone key areas of the city for investment attraction and pre-zone key areas for the city for density-driven development.
Council passed the motion unanimously.
Moses thanked Nelson for the motion, saying the quicker the city can get on it the better.
He also said the information he and Boehm gather at the housing summit will be helpful for the city.
Rathor said he is hoping after February, the Ministry of Education will make an announcement to replace Marie Sharpe Elementary School, the oldest school in the city.
“The goal of the council is to go after the provincial and federal government to have a secondary access to the west side,” he said, adding bringing more houses to the city will increase the tax base.
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