It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.
We speak, of course, of the City of Burnaby’s request for proposals to build non-market housing on two city-owned properties.
As detailed in our story on page 10, the city has two properties – one at 7898 18th Ave., the other at 3802 Hastings St. – available as part of its new non-market housing program.
The program is designed to allow designated city-owned lands to be leased at a nominal cost to providers of non-market housing – including non-profit and/or cooperative housing associations and senior levels of government.
It’s a reasonable idea.
Granted, the location of the properties isn’t perfect – neither is particularly accessible to rapid transit, and neither is in the Metrotown area, where the biggest housing squeeze is currently taking place.
But hey, it’s still land.
The cost of land – especially in this ludicrous housing market – is an obvious barrier to any group that might want to build affordable housing. Taking away that barrier makes it substantially more doable for an association to come forward with a viable operating plan.
Mayor Derek Corrigan has long been vocal about not having property owners take on the tax burden of paying for non-market housing, and this is one way for the city to avoid doing that.
We can quibble with his stance – frankly, we think affordable housing is one of the things that tax dollars ought to help pay for – but we will choose to step away from philosophical arguments and instead focus on the positive.
We hope there’s a non-profit group or a housing association out there that can step forward and take advantage of this land offer.
No, it’s not a full-fledged strategy to address the city’s huge housing challenges. But every good strategy has to start somewhere, and it might as well be here.
