The District of Saanich is not on track to meet provincial housing targets, though council maintains the district is heading in the right direction.
According to Saanich’s first housing target progress report, the district had 195 net new units completed — handed an occupancy permit — in the first six months of a provincially mandated housing target program.
The province, which set housing targets for Saanich and other municipalities around B.C. in 2023, expected 440 units completed in the first year in Saanich and 4,610 net new units to be completed in five years.
“I think the report is largely a reflection of a process of improvement,” said Mayor Dean Murdock. “It takes a while to get things turned in the right direction. And I think what we’re seeing with this first six months of reporting is that largely we’re trending toward meeting the first year’s target.”
Murdock said the district has increased staffing, introduced better technology, and streamlined its processes to speed up housing approvals.
The report, which the district is required to submit to the province in six-month intervals in the first year and then annually after that, noted Saanich has undertaken 19 initiatives to get housing built faster.
Those steps include updating the official community plan to modernize land use and identify primary growth areas that support higher density, new plans to offer a greater land-use mix along major corridors and centres, and undertaking a cross-department review of the current development and rezoning application process to decrease application review and processing timelines.
Murdock said those steps are not reflected in the six-month progress report, but will pay off over time.
“It sets us up for success in achieving the overall target in five years, but in the first six months, we’re really not getting a strong indicator of how things are getting better,” he said.
The province has set a target that 1,161 of the 4,610 new units should be non-market housing. In the first six months, zero of the 29 rental units completed were below-market housing.
Murdock said council has approved non-market housing, including a 119-unit project proposed by the Capital Region Housing Corporation, but it won’t materialize for at least two years.
When asked if it was realistic to expect municipalities to have made real progress and provide a report within six months given development takes years of planning and approvals, Murdock said there is some validity in following the process.
“What the province is looking for is the municipality demonstrating that we’re pulling all of our levers to improve our processes, to make things happen more quickly,” he said. “And that is certainly what’s happening internally. It’s to see evidence that we’re moving in the right direction.”
While the report was accepted and approved by council Monday night, Saanich did put the province on notice that it wants to be sure the province will be working on providing the kinds of support and services — like improved health care, parks and schools — to handle the growth it has mandated.
“Even if it’s just to signal to the province, we need to know what the plans are for the other aspects of growth that we don’t actually control,” said Coun. Colin Plant.
