The Capital Regional District is looking for the green light to more than double its borrowing authority for the supply of affordable homes and future housing partnerships.
Currently at $35 million, the proposed increase would bring the borrowing authority to $85 million through the utilization of land assembly, housing, and land banking services.
The regional district is conducting an alternative approval process, allowing the CRD to adopt the borrowing bylaw unless more than 10 percent of voters submit a signed elector response by the Feb. 5 deadline.
The service area encompasses 331,905 voters in the municipalities and electoral areas within the CRD.
Sooke Mayor Maja Tait said the CRD has a proven track record when it comes to providing affordable housing.
Last year’s CRD housing report showed 1,877 purpose-built rental units have been delivered in 51 buildings in seven municipalities during the past 50 years.
“This is an opportunity to provide more safe, inclusive housing that we all know we need,” said Tait, Sooke’s representative on the CRD board.
“We’re not borrowing it all for immediate use. The CRD has to be ready for future opportunities such as partnerships with the federal and provincial governments as they arise.”
Tait said the decision to go the route of an an alternative approval process was deemed to be the best choice because of the challenges and expense posed by doing a referendum on a regional level.
Juan de Fuca Electoral Area director Al Wickheim said he and most people he’s spoken with are not in favour of the AAP process, or what the CRD is asking for.
All of the communities in the Juan de Fuca electoral district can’t afford the increase in terms of water capacity, and the other regional services more homes would require, he said.
Wickheim also believes the CRD should put much more effort in publicizing what the AAP involves.
“I’ve been involved in two of these,” he said. “The first one didn’t have much impact on the electoral area, but the number of people who responded was appallingly low.”
Wickheim said much of the feedback he’s received from Juan de Fuca residents is that AAPs are not nearly as well publicized as they should be.
“They need to do a better job of promoting this and make it easier to respond,” he said. “It may be cheaper than a referendum, but not as cheap as what the outcome might be if it was better publicized. We’re talking about a huge amount of money here.”
The CRD said debt would not be incurred until specific partnerships and project opportunities are identified and approved through the annual CRD budget process. The recovery of debt costs would be through annual requisitions for the service over a period not exceeding 30 years.
A spokesperson for the CRD said they could not provide a number for the number of people who have voted so far. The total number of voters will be available after the process has been completed and the votes have been validated.
The elector forms are available at crd.bc.ca.
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