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Penticton’s mayor says municipalities need greater powers to incentivize developments, as provincial politicians talk about changing zoning rules to promote rental developments.
Being able to zone specifically for rental housing may be a welcome move from Penticton’s mayor, who says municipalities need greater powers to incentivize developments.
The B.C. NDP announced Wednesday that they would open up to municipalities the ability to zone an area specifically for rental units, barring for-sale housing from a rental-zoned lot.
Penticton’s Mayor Andrew Jakubeit says there needs to be more market-based solutions for rental affordability, noting that relying on entities like B.C. Housing to subsidize rental units for affordability isn’t sustainable.
“The more you can get the market to help offset that, maybe by building some smaller units, by putting more units, creating more supply so demand is slightly less and you’re not fighting for, paying for premium apartments,” Jakubeit said, adding that Penticton has recently seen a surge of rental apartment applications.
“We’re starting to get a fair bit more of a rental stock, which is a good thing.”
With that said, he said there are other ways the province can open up a city’s ability to incentivize rental developments.
“We’ve been lobbying for B.C. Assessment to create a new class for vacant or derelict lands, so we could tax them at a higher rate,” Jakubeit said. “Which would incentivize them to either create a public amenity,… or to actually start developing, and that would help push development.
“And certainly, if that could be tied into affordable housing, well then maybe there’s some more incentive. We don’t have enough tax incentives for people to create … affordable housing solutions, or for existing landlords to upgrade.”
Those upgrades, according to Jakubeit, could address issues like poor insulation, which can incur higher utility bills, often footed by the renter.
“The tenant pays through the nose for that, and come the winter months, they literally pay through the nose,” Jakubeit said. “That makes affordability an issue as well, and that’s something else that I hope gets addressed through this election process in terms of solutions being floated out there and hopefully acted on.”
Jakubeit says city hall has seen applications for about 250 units of rental housing, recently, which he says could help alleviate a hot rental market with a 1.1-per-cent vacancy rate.
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