A four-storey rental housing project with office space on the ground floor and up to 24 units on the top three storeys is being proposed for 9800 Willow St. in Chemainus.
The Municipality of North Cowichan is working with the province to fast-track the development, which will be on the site where a fire hall once stood, as part of the BC Builds program that connects public land with home builders and non-profit operators.
The province announced in April that proposals are being sought for eight pre-zoned housing sites on public lands, including 9800 Willow St. These sites have been added to the BC Builds property list to fast-track more rental homes to be built for people with middle incomes in B.C.
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“Our communities and our economy depend on middle-income people like teachers, nurses and construction workers, and they depend on being able to find a decent place to live within their budget,” said Premier David Eby at the time.
“By bringing together public landowners and housing developers and operators through BC Builds, we are transforming underused public land throughout the province into thousands of lower-cost, middle-income rental homes.”
All BC Builds projects have a target of households with middle incomes spending no more than 30 per cent of their income on rent.
In addition, at least 20 per cent of all BC Builds homes must have rents at least 20 per cent below market rate.
North Cowichan and the BC Community Land Trust have made a successful submission to this program for the 9800 Willow St. site, with the Land Trust identified as the non-profit operator.
North Cowichan Mayor Rob Douglas said municipal staff had been given direction to work with the province to develop the site at Willow Street some time ago and, while BC Community Land Trust will be the operator of the facility, the next step is to identify a developer to build the project.
He said an information session for potential developers for the project will be held via Webex on May 10 at 2 p.m. hosted by BC Builds with the support of staff from North Cowichan.
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To review the property-opportunity notice for the Willow Street site or sign up for the info session, go to https://www.bcbuildshomes.ca/developers.
Douglas said development and building permits for the project will be considered by the municipality after the developer is chosen, and the construction of the facility is expected to be completed 12 to 18 months after that, rather than the typical three to five years it would usually take.
“This acceleration is accomplished by streamlining municipal development processes and having the BC Builds team working collaboratively with landowners, local governments, and residential developers to remove any barriers,” he said.
Because the proposed project would be operated by a not-for-profit entity, it will be eligible for subsidies, and that’s important because the office and civic spaces planned for the first floor may require some civic support to offset costs as the current market is not sufficiently strong enough to allow this type of development on its own.
Douglas said the concept plans for the housing project are still in preliminary stages and changes could be made as the development progresses.
Ravi Kahlon, minister of Housing, said the province is dealing with a housing crisis and governments must play an active role together with non-profits and the private sector to build as much housing as possible.
“BC Builds is getting British Columbia back into the game of building middle-income housing as quickly as possible by connecting public lands with home builders and non-profit housing operators,” he said.