The Mayor of Port Coquitlam says the province is not listening to his city’s needs after being added to the housing targets list.
The Housing Supply Act, announced last year, allows the B.C. government to set housing targets for select municipalities. Initially, 10 communities were told they’d have to build a certain amount of housing over the next five years, but on Tuesday, a third set of housing targets were announced — this list includes Port Coquitlam.
Mayor of Port Coquitlam Brad West says he thinks the housing target does not reflect the need for more family-friendly housing.
West says Port Coquitlam has done the work to inform the province it needs more units that support families but the province is “inconsistent” with the work that the city is doing.
“It is skewing overwhelmingly to studio, and one-bedroom apartments,” he said. “We don’t want a community that is just a whole bunch of 470 square foot condos,” West said.
The mayor says the housing targets are not “individualized plans tailored to your community” but rather a “cookie cutter, copy and paste formula” that is used across the province.
“The likelihood of being able to afford a single-family home is pretty minimal at this point, so you’re going to see more and more young families living in multi-family housing,” West said. “We want them to have livable homes, and that means having more than one bedroom.”
The new housing target announcement says that the province has sent each of the municipalities a housing guideline that recommends the number of units by size, rental or owned, below-market rentals and units with on-site support.
The new units that are targeted to be completed within five years are in the following municipalities:
Colwood – 940
City of Langley – 1,844
Mission – 1,798
New Westminster – 4,432
North Cowichan – 1,233
North Saanich – 419
Port Coquitlam – 2,279
Prince George – 1,803
View Royal – 585
West Kelowna – 2,266
B.C. says these targets are based on 75 per cent of its estimated housing need for each municipality.
The Housing Supply Act is part of the Province’s Homes for People action plan to deliver more homes in B.C. The province says since 2017, it has nearly 80,000 homes built.
–With files from Anthony Atanasov.