Use Duncan Manor as affordable housing template
Dear Duncan mayor and council:
Please use the pending redevelopment and upgrade of Duncan Manor as a template for helping solve our local affordable-housing crisis.
Details appeared in the April 25, 2024 Cowichan Citizen.
The six-story, 130-unit building project that had community input — and wisely saves landmark St. John’s Anglican Church — appears to be the right tool for the job that is growing bigger every day — along with costs to simply provide housing for folks.
Affordable, according to B.C. Housing, is no more than 30 per cent of one’s income.
That yardstick is thankfully being applied to Duncan Manor, but sadly not to various other private projects being built in the city.
That seems contradictory for councillors who recognize affordable housing needs to house working people, struggling seniors and others who already live here — without inviting more people to live in drought-ridden, sprawl-vulnerable Cowichan.
Housing street people is a separate, complex crisis Cowichan’s governments have failed to solve.
Under provincial home-building edicts, responsibility falls to local governments to decide what, where, how, how green, and for whom homes are built.
Thankfully, many smart models also exist across Canada and abroad for housing people of all incomes and needs. Let’s use those models here rather than reinventing wheels. Our needs are too great.
Yours in smart-housing needs,
Peter W. Rusland
North Cowichan