I and my constituency team in Saanich North and the Islands are committed to increasing participation in our government and so we have created an outreach program called The Public Circle within the Constituency Office. The program will include various types of public engagement and consultation tools from open dialogue sessions to topic focussed incubators and town hall meetings.
Our first Community Dialogue was hosted on October 24, 2017 at the Constituency Office. 19 community members joined us to discuss the critical topic of housing. I have heard loud and clear across the riding that housing affordability and attainability is the greatest concern.
My predecessor, Gary Holman, commissioned through the Capital Regional District a report called the CRD Saanich Peninsula Affordable Housing Needs Assessment Summary Report. It is a comprehensive review that highlights and substantiates the well-known affordable and attainable housing gaps on the Saanich Peninsula. The graph below (from page 25 of the report) illustrates the challenges we face.
A lack of affordable housing on the Saanich Peninsula is having significant social impacts. Participants in the Community Dialogue lamented that young people are forced to move out of the community, businesses are struggling to find employees, and employees must travel long distances from where they live to where they work, just to name a few. All of these challenges lower quality of life and put considerable stress on people, families, entrepreneurs, service delivery providers, healthcare, and the education system.
Several participants discussed past programs of the federal and provincial governments, that when ended, they helped lay the ground work for the problems we face today. The changing relationship between housing unit, increased speculation and the commodification of residential real estate, and the home were discussed at length, as was the substantial impact of the influx of foreign capital in the province and a significant disconnect between supply and demand policy that made a bad problem worse.
The discussion throughout the evening was not just about the challenges. The Public Circle is about more that just identifying the problems, it is important that participants of the Community Dialogues identify solutions.
Here is a list of some of the ideas that came from the discussion.
- Address through policy the influx of foreign capital in British Columbia,
- Ensure an increase in demand (i.e. commercial/industrial development) is matched by a supply of attainable housing for employees,
- Housing should be considered a necessity. Houses as homes.
- Policy to create long-term stability for renters,
- Allow for tiny homes, space for float homes and live-aboards, and renewed investments in housing cooperatives,
- Coordination with local governments and residents on infill and densification initiatives,
- Municipalities should be a “scorekeeper” not a “gatekeeper”, and
- Regulate and enforce short-term vacation rentals.
This is just a sample of the ideas brought forward. I am encouraged by the quality of the discussion and that all the citizens who attended had an opportunity to provide thoughtful insights and contributed to developing ideas that I will most certainly discuss with the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
We will be continuing our Community Dialogues once a month. The next session is on the topic of Innovation and the Emerging Economy. We will be discussing the changing nature of work, impacts on the workforce, disruptive technologies, and automation. The world is rapidly changing and our government is not tooled to be flexible and adaptive. We do not look to the horizon and prepare our society for change, and we do not have a public policy environment that is informed by the change-makers, to ensure that both the incumbent industries and those changing the status quo can thrive in British Columbia. Please join us!
Community Dialogue
Innovation and the Emerging Economy
When: Wednesday, December 6, 2017 – 7:00pm
Where: Saanich North and the Islands Constituency Office
215-2506 Beacon Avenue, Sidney, BC
250-655-5600
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS1B-zko6Y4[/embedyt]
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