Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to the committee today.
My name is Jill Atkey. I'm the CEO of B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association, which is the industry association for non-profit housing providers in British Columbia. I was also a panellist on the expert panel on the future of housing supply and affordability, which was appointed by the federal and provincial ministers of finance and which put forward a recommendation for a similar fund to encourage and incentivize housing supply.
I'll start out by saying that I absolutely support the comments of Edith. In my comments today I will raise six principles to consider in the design of the housing accelerator fund specifically.
First off, we need to reward the type of housing that we want to see more of in our communities. Some are going to argue that all supply is the right supply. I agree that this is true for rental housing. On ownership, we're seeing so much equity in the system that much of the new supply that's built gets consumed by existing homeowners who are buying second, third and fourth properties as investments. The acceleration fund should prioritize the type of housing we desperately need in our communities, which is affordable rental housing and family-sized housing.
The second principle I'd like to raise is to be cautious of a focus on unit counting. It's really important that government sets goals, and it has under this program. I speak from experience on this, as our advocacy has often fallen into a similar trap. A really strict focus on the number of units encourages developers to build and municipalities to approve studio and one-bedroom units and not a lot of two-, three- and four-bedroom homes or homes large enough for multi-generational households. The number of homes is important, but if incentives are on offer, the types of homes also matter.
Thirdly, the accelerator fund should require annual per-door incentives to be spent on affordable housing. If the accelerator fund includes per-door incentives, Canada should require that those funds be spent on affordable housing, which would help to close the gap on the national co-investment fund projects or even RCFI projects under the new criteria set out in our most recent federal budget.
Canada committed to building 50,000 new homes in the community housing sector over 10 years. We're not yet on track to meet this target. A move of tying annual per-door incentives to spending on affordable housing could help to fill that gap by requiring municipalities to spend those dollars directly on affordable housing.
Fourth, reward municipalities that create the right conditions for non-profit housing development. When a non-profit project enters the municipal approvals process, it's sensitive to three critical risks: time, cost and uncertainty of approval. A rezoning—and many of our projects go through rezoning—will add months to the project and add costs in the range of $500,000 to a million dollars, all at the expense of the tenants who will face increased rents as a result. Recent bylaw amendments in municipalities like Victoria and Vancouver mean that non-profit developers can bypass rezonings and public hearings in many situations, eliminating or at least reducing all three of those risks. Municipalities that put forward such actions to eliminate those three barriers and make non-profit and co-op housing allowable as of right now should be rewarded by this fund.
Fifth, encourage intensification of existing residential areas. Too much of our residential-zoned land in large urban centres is zoned exclusively for single-family housing, pushing new supply into condo and rental towers along polluted and busy arterial roads. Homeowners are resisting even moderate density increases in their communities. The accelerator fund should incentivize intensification of these inclusionary zones and disincentivize new greenfield development, particularly in the midst of a climate emergency.
Finally, require strong protections for renters. A great deal of our new housing supply in urban centres comes through the redevelopment of existing properties. This is particularly true for rental development. This is in part because of the exclusionary zoning I mentioned previously, and in part because the assets are aging. With new incentives like the accelerator fund, this process of redevelopment will intensify and displacement will become an even bigger concern. The fund should require that strong tenant protections are in place for redevelopments.
While the government will surely have many additional considerations when designing the accelerator fund, these few guiding principles will help steer the program in the right direction.
I thank you for your time today, and I'm happy to answer any questions when the time comes.