New Westminster is creating a housing division to help expedite housing permits and units.
In an effort to help the city address council’s strategic priority related to homes and housing options, staff recommended the city create a new housing division within the climate action, planning and development department.
“The new strategic plan is an opportunity to evaluate the department’s functions to ensure appropriate alignment of our structure and work plan to effectively and efficiently advance the priority and enhance service delivery,” said a memo to council. “This is particularly necessary at this time given the extensive legislative changes being announced by the province to facilitate getting more housing built faster, which have broad implications for the way the city carries out this work in the near- and long-term.”
A report to council said legislative changes related to housing that are being put forward by the province will have “significant implications” for staff and the climate action, planning and development department’s work plan.
Jackie Teed, the city’s director of climate action, said the legislation touches on almost everything the city does in regards to housing, including long-term planning for housing in the official community plan, pre-zoning of land in the city, amenities, and housing approvals.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us. We're both excited and energized and quite concerned,” she said. “So we will be over the next two months really thinking about that and preparing a workshop to come and really dig into all of that.”
Teed said the City of New Westminster has been exceeding its overall housing targets, but has been struggling to meet its affordable housing and supportive housing targets.
Teed said a new housing division would align with the strategic priority related to housing, but it would also align with senior government strategies and plans – which gives the city an opportunity to tie into potential grants and funding from senior governments.
“It will help us to meet our housing targets, as outlined in our required city housing needs report,” she said.
In a recent budget workshop, Teed said the housing division would include the city’s current manager of housing and long-range planning.
“But, also, we would need to staff that up with a number of housing planners,” she told council. “In order to really do this work, it requires a village.”
A memo to council outlined 14 staff positions being requested so the city can meet the targets in the housing needs report and the housing requirements set out in provincial legislation.
The memo stated the projected cost in the 2024 budget is $1.4 million, plus benefits and general operational expenses, followed by an additional $600,000 (plus benefits and expenses) in the 2025 budget.
Positions include a senior housing planner, two housing planners, a supervisor of land use planning, a senior social planner related to vulnerable population housing, and a master plan development planner.
“You can see here the list of the different kinds of positions we need to support this work, and to support it in the robust and extensive way that the province is looking for us to do it and in the quick timelines and ongoing work that the province is asking us to do as well,” Teed told council at a Nov. 20 workshop. “Because of those really short timelines, our intention is to start recruitment immediately, with the intention that the positions would only be filled once the budget is approved.”
Because council’s strategic priority plan for housing and the creation of a housing division align with the federal and provincial intentions, Teed said staff will be looking into various grant opportunities.
“The province is also supporting implementation of their legislation with funding that they expect to announce in early in 2024, and it's estimated, based on our population, that we could receive in the order of $710,000,” she said. “We've also, in preparing for creating this division and the supporting staff, reviewed and reallocated our existing staff. So we've really focused on: how do we maximize the efficiency of our existing staff, align them with the priority work, pausing other work that's not housing-specific related.”
Teed said the city has looked at retaining and advancing its existing “highly trained and experienced staff” in an effort to keep good people in the organization. She said areas have also been identified where the city could use contracts or consultants, where viable, for short-term pieces of work, rather than having city staff do that work.
Outside of the budget process, Coun. Nadine Nakagawa said she’d like council to have a workshop on the provincial housing legislation.
“It's new, and there's a lot,” she said. “And it's really policy wonk stuff that they're announcing.”
Lisa Spitale, the city’s chief administrative office, said staff are planning a workshop for early 2024 to discuss the legislation.
Mayor Patrick Johnstone said New Westminster isn’t the only city that’s going to be facing “resource challenges” because of the new housing legislation.
“It’s going to be a provincewide thing,” he said. “There aren't enough consultants in the province to do all of this work on time.”
Teed said everything that’s being put forward by the province is stuff that New Westminster is already doing, planning to do or wishing it could do if it had the resources.
“So now that's all been brought forward at one time, there's a lot of very short timelines. There's the potential to have things mandated by the province on us if we don't meet those timelines, and every municipality across the province is facing the same thing,” she said. “So, as with most things, the devil will be in the details.”
