Working with the Camosun neighbourhood to replace Townley Lodge with additional low-income units is a new year priority for the Greater Victoria Housing Society.
A proposal to build 67 affordable units for seniors and families, in the works for the past year, faced so many concerns about scale and density from neighbours that Saanich council decided in the fall not to send the rezoning to a public hearing.
Kaye Melliship, the housing society’s executive director, said she was taken aback by the decision, given that the proposal had the unanimous backing of the advisory planning commission and the recommendation of the municipality’s planning department.
The proposal would have replaced the 39-unit, two-storey Townley Lodge with a 51-unit, three- and four-storey apartment building for seniors and 16 townhouses for low-income families. The property is on Townley Street, near the former Richmond Elementary school on Richmond Road.
The proposal met the requirements of the Saanich Official Community Plan.
Along the way, the housing society made nearly 30 modifications to the plans, including re-siting the apartment and lopping off some fourth-floor units.
But landowners along Townley Street, Ilene Terrace, Oriole Street and Queenston Avenue called the project “too dense, too high and too intrusive to suit the needs and expectations of neighbours and the surrounding community.”
“We feel overwhelmed by what has been proposed and underwhelmed by the little results achieved by nearly a year of discussions held with the GVHS,” residents wrote to council, adding they would “enthusiastically support” a project of a more modest scale.
They had in mind 80 units in a two- and three-storey building, with no townhouses for families.
Melliship said social housing is “absolutely needed” in Saanich.
The municipality’s planning department has said that low-income housing accounts for barely 5.5 per cent of the 51,000 residences in Saanich.
In a letter to Saanich council, Camosun Community Association president Sandie Menzies acknowledged “the critical issue of affordability in our neighbourhood,” but said that a four-storey building would be “clearly out of context on a residential street.”
The project would also destroy “a large number of significant trees,” devaluing the urban forest by replacing them with ornamental plantings in a green space not adequate for a mixed housing development of such size, she wrote.
B.C. Housing committed $6.2 million to the Townley project in September, but Melliship understood that the money was contingent on the project being shovel-ready by June.
Before the project proceeds further, Saanich must rezone the property, a move which would require a public hearing.
B.C. Housing said that it expects a rezoning decision to be made by the end of March.
“If the GVHS cannot meet the deadlines for the federal funding program, but rezoning is approved and the project proceeds, B.C. Housing will work with the society to ensure that funding is secured from another program,” a spokeswoman said.
As it stands, low-income tenants living in Townley Lodge continue to be relocated, Melliship said, in the hopes of working something out that the community will welcome.
She said she hopes to explore further options for the site with the Camosun Community Association at a meeting slated for Thursday.
“We would definitely like to continue to have a development on the Townley site if we can get approval for a project that makes economic sense,” she said.
“We remain optimistic that we can make something work.”
Saanich affordable housing
There are 2,799 units of low-income housing in Saanich, representing about 5.5 per cent of the total number, — about 51,000 residences.
Of those, 2,282 have B.C. Housing involvement, accounting for 22 per cent of the provincially supported social housing units in the capital region. The remaining 517 units receive federal funding.
In the 2011 census, 18 per cent of the 45,000 households in Saanich — about 8,000 households — had income under $30,000. Of those, more than 6,000 were in the “precarious” state of spending more than 50 per cent of their income on housing, according to the Community Social Planning Council of Greater Victoria in 2015.
Recent affordable housing projects in Saanich include:
• Cottage Grove (with B.C. Housing) — 45 units under construction in the 3200 block of Quadra Street for at-risk people ages 55 and up and seniors. Due to be completed this year.
• Rosalie’s Village (with St. Vincent de Paul Society) — 43 units on West Saanich Road for women and children. Opened in 2015.
• Clover Place (with Pacifica Housing) — 18 support units in the 3200 block of Douglas Street for people with mental-health and/or addiction issues. Opened in 2009.
• Habitat for Humanity built nine units in two family-oriented projects in 2010 and 2015.
• Mt. View Heights (multiple partners) — A mix of 260 senior residential care units, 36 units for homeless seniors, 55 affordable seniors rental units and 18 affordable family housing units in the 3800 block of Carey Road. Opened between 2011 and 2014.
