Attainable Housing Proposal

I'm surprised at the lack of comments in this forum given the amount of discussion this topic has generated in the past and the criticism directed towards Fernie city council and the CitySpaces consultants. Maybe people were expecting a few simple solutions and not an overwhelming list of 29 recommendations. One thing I didn't see in the report was a potential timeline. I'm guessing that even if all of the recommended actions are undertaken in the most timely manner possible, it could be years before any new affordable housing units become available. There are proposed short term policy actions, but very little immediate relief in the form of low-cost housing units -- unless there are a lot of people with unoccupied secondary suites in their homes. It's also interesting that the proposal to eliminate the moratorium on rental unit conversions hasn't generated any feedback so far.

i hope to make a comment on these reports soon. to tell you the truth I haven't had a chance to read them in full as I have been across the province trying to find some decent snow.

from my initial scanning of the documents I think alot of great actions are presented and should be seriously considered by all.

look forward to skierboy's full response sometime before the new year

As someone who has posted a lot about this topic, I can give you my two cents worth, speaking only for myself of course. I think there has been a lack of response about this report because it doesn't really say anything concrete, which was my fear from the start. The fact is, it's way too late to do anything about it now. This report is a token gesture that the city can use to say that they're addressing the problem, but really what are they doing? Saying that we need to have more secondary suites? That's their solution to the problem of affordable housing, have people rent out their bedrooms? Wow....and don't forget, this is the same city council that a few years ago decided to crack down on and eliminate most of the secondary suites that were operating in Fernie. Other than that, all I see in this report are things that will be "considered" and "suggested" I think that what people wanted to see was something like..."there will be several acres allotted to a new affordable mobile home park", or "construction will begin in 2008 on a new condominium complex that will sell units at below market cost...." But of course, there is none of that to be found in this report, and therefore, nothing has been done to attack the problem. How much further are we in the process than we were a year ago? With no concrete action outlined or dates set, how much further along will we be a year from now? It does not bode well. I think most people who are affected by this have simply given up and moved on, as you will have better odds of growing another arm than you will of waiting for city council to do anything. As for the elimination of the moratorium on rental unit conversions, just another example of council being pushed around by the developers, which has been the problem from the start. If we can't do what we want with our buildings, we won't build them. And you can't argue with that philosophy I guess. Greed is what makes the world go round. I never thought it would be possible, but if anything, I actually feel worse about this whole issue after reading this report.

In reply to Trailhead's comment, maybe there just wasn't anything in the report that we didn't already know or hadn't already discussed to death, and therefore it didn't warrant much of a response.

I have read the report and I'm really pleased with it. I do have an issue with the amount of time it's taken and the cost involved, however I recognise that this stuff has to go on paper if you want to start making any progress and applying for funding. I think there are definate recommendations and timelines in the report. Cityspaces were not in a position though to say exactly when or what was going to happen next as they were just taken on to assess the needs and make suggestions. It's City Council who need to take the next step and actually say what they are going to do about it.

With the holidays coming up, I'm not expecting much before next year, but I'm hopeful. I'm very hopeful.

I think the single critical un-addressed component in "affordable" housing lies with the businesses in any resort. Until they pay a reasonable living wage, "affordable" housing subsidizes their cost of doing business and puts more bucks in their pockets.

Any "affordable" housing plan should tie residents/employers into a relationship that encourages the resident to move on using the employee housing as a stepping stone to their own place in town. Too many times this housing becomes transient, low-wage, disposable worker housing for the large-scale employers.

To solve the problem, you need to address the issue. The issue is the cost of housing in relation to the wages paid. Dealing with only the housing, only deals with half the problem. You still need to deal with the issue of wages to solve the problem.

zippy, which businesses are you referring to? There are many small businesses, especially those on 2nd Ave, that if they paid more would either go out of business, just close up shop, or be operated by just the owner.
I thinks some of the larger high profit businesses could provide something, however those are in the minority.

the smaller less profitable local businesses pay much higher wages than the larger more profitable companies. (read RCR... do I have to say it>?)

the large high profit businesses are a minority in number of businesses, but not in the number of employees......

Pushing up wages will just push up house prices even more, that doesn't address anything.

The City and local businesses (RCR & the mine industries included) need to address the issue if they want to keep attracting employees and families to the area and perpetuating a community rather than allowing Fernie to turn into a seasonal holiday-home location.

This means both short term rental properties and long term purchase properties at affordable rates. It's only greed that is promoting this ridiculous rate of overinflated house and rental prices, whether you look at it locally, nationally or globally. The only good news is that it can't possibly continue indefinately and without some positive action there's going to be a lot of condo owners without anyone to fix their pipes, paint their walls, make their coffee or shuttle them around...

Agreed. The main issue is that of supply and demand. I have said it here before, The supply of new housing has been limited compared to the demand. Recreational buyers are snapping up everything and anything they can get their hands on because they have no choice. Buying and $$$renovating$$$ the existing housing has resulted in an erosion of supply of entry level houses as well as an escalation of asking price. Once a house is renovated it will never be an entry level home ever again. Many of those buying and renovating would rather build from new, but there is very very few opportunities to do so, therefore the entry level housing was snapped up.

Hmmm, I'm not sure about that greed comment. A house is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. If someone sells a house at market value does that make them greedy? If someone sells a house at below market value then they may not be greedy but they're certainly foolish. Yes people are buying older homes and renovating them, but what's wrong with that? Most older houses are badly in need of repair and upgrading. And that's preferable to a city full of cheap substandard housing.

I tend to agree with mtnrat, that housing costs are driven by supply and demand more than by greed. The recommendations in the report are expected to help increase the supply of entry-level and rental housing units, and hopefully this will result in lower prices. But if demand grows faster than supply then prices will just keep going up.