North Cowichan’s council decided at its meeting in July to change the timelines of implementing its new affordable housing policy.
The original plan was to adopt it as a draft policy at the meeting before referring the policy to the Cowichan Housing Association, Economic Development Cowichan, Co-operative Housing Federation of BC, Community Land Trust and BC Housing for input.
The municipality then planned to proceed with public engagement on the policy and staff would bring back a report to council with proposed policy adjustments based on the new information received from stakeholders and the pubic.
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But Mayor Rob Douglas suggested it would be better to gather input from stakeholders and the public first, and then adopt the policy at the council meeting on Sept. 6.
“I think we’d be in a better position to engage the community if we don’t adopt the policy first,” he said.
“There is a perception by some folks out there that if we adopt this and then go out and ask for input, we’d be less interested in their feedback and I think this exercise would be a lot more fruitful and genuine if we were able to hold off on adopting it until we did that.”
But Coun. Tek Manhas said he would like to see the period of public engagement extend beyond the summer months because people are less interested at that time.
“We did the same thing last year with the official community plan process,” he said.
“We’re looking for public input in the summer when people aren’t really engaging in the process because summer is when the kids are at home on vacation. I’d like to see it extended until October so we’d also have the month of September of engage the public.”
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Douglas said he’s against extending the public input into October.
“I hear this so much in suggesting that July and August are no good because its summer time, the kids are going back to school in September, people are getting ready for Christmas in November, December is Christmas and in January, everyone is too tired to do anything after Christmas,” Douglas said.
“How many months of the year can we do this? My view is that if you care about something and you’re interested in it, you’re going to find the time to engage.”
Douglas’s motion passed, with Manhas and Coun. Bruce Findlay opposed.
The new affordable housing policy and its implementation plan will seek to set strategic direction for North Cowichan to continue important work on affordable housing issues.
This includes implementing housing policies from the official community plan, setting targets for the provision of affordable housing in new developments, and identifying future actions and projects intended to improve housing suitability and affordability in the community.
The municipality is experiencing a critical lack of affordable rental and ownership housing, and has made housing one of the five main pillars of North Cowichan’s strategic plan, which was adopted in 2018.
robert.barron@cowichanvalleycitizen.com
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