City staff are putting together a package to prompt developers to build rental apartments in Maple Ridge, but steps to counteract evictions and demolitions may not be among them.
While The Alliance Against Displacement battles the scenario in Burnaby, where developers buy up rental apartment blocks that provide cheap accommodation, then demolish them and replace them with pricey condos, Maple Ridge has so far escaped that situation.
“I haven’t heard anything about that in Maple Ridge and I haven’t heard any discussion about it,” said Coun. Bob Masse, who’s on the city’s social planning advisory committee.
“To be honest with you, that hasn’t been on our radar.”
In May, the Alliance presented a report to Burnaby council portraying the effects on renters who lose their suites to “demo-victions.”
But Masse said the market is different in Maple Ridge, and with prices lower, there’s less incentive to build large condo towers. There hasn’t been a concrete high-rise built anywhere in Maple Ridge in recent years, he added.
It’s difficult enough to get a builder to start a project in Maple Ridge without requiring affordable units as a condition, he said.
“We want to do everything we can to provide affordable housing. The arithmetic’s completely different here than it is in Vancouver.”
Requiring a developer to provide a number of affordable suites that are equivalent to those being demolished could simply kill a project.
“We have zero concrete buildings being built without adding those kinds of things because the market isn’t lucrative enough.
“We need a lot more rental apartments and we have had so few come in.”
One rental apartment block with 64 units was recently proposed for Burnett Street, just off Lougheed Highway. Council, in July, gave that enthusiastic support for first reading.
And a proposal this spring to rebuild Sunrise Apartments, destroyed in a fire last year on 122nd Ave., includes another 200 new rental apartments.
While Maple Ridge has completed its Housing Action Plan, it’s awaiting a staff report this fall on the specific steps that could be taken to encourage construction of rental apartment blocks.
Masse said it’s possible that council could refuse to rezone a proposal that would entail knocking down such buildings.
But he wanted to use incentives to increase the number of rental units available in order to bring down the monthly rents which today go from anywhere from $700 to $1,200 a month.
The vacancy rate in Maple Ridge is at about one per cent.
He said that UBCM advocates yearly for the federal government to bring back tax incentives to reward investors for building rental apartments.
“The U.S. has jumped ahead of us on that one.”
City of Maple Ridge social planning analyst Shawn Matthewson said the issue of rental housing is an issue across Maple Ridge.
With skyrocketing housing prices, “more and more people are not able to afford a home so they’re renting more, so the demand is greater.”
She said the city is looking at all types of incentives to increase rental stock.
Masse added that Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge MP Dan Ruimy is aware of the request to restore tax incentives.
The federal government is now developing a national housing strategy is taking feedback on that topic until Oct. 21. Ruimy hosted a meeting on the topic on Sunday.
The federal government also announced $150 million earlier this year to help co-op housing providers to pay off costly loans earlier, freeing up money for building repairs.
B.C. mayors will be talking about housing when they meet at the Union of B.C. Municipalities next month in Victoria.
Another related topic up for discussion at the convention is the use of “reno-victions” by landlords to evict tenants on the pretence of major renovations in order to charge much higher rent to a new tenant. A New Westminster resolution would ask the province to give renters the right of first refusal to return to their old unit at a rent no more than what could have been charged had they stayed. How to deal with Airbnb is also up for discussion.
According to B.C. Housing, more than 104,000 homes receive some kind of provincial housing program or service such as supportive housing, rental assistance, assisted living, or subsidized housing.
The government this year also announced another $355 million over five years to build or renovate more than 2,000 units of affordable housing across B.C. Last year, more than 2,800 affordable housing units were created. This includes more than 1,420 rent supplements provided through the new Homeless Prevention Program (HPP), which started in 2014.
