Fraserview co-op signals change in financing affordable housing
Kim Pemberton
The Vancouver Sun
A new co-operative housing project, near the Fraser River off Marine Drive, is under construction after the City of Vancouver donated land to the Vancouver Community Land Trust run under the auspices of the Co-Operative Housing Federation of B.C.
The new Fraserview Housing Co-op, which will provide 278 homes in two residential towers at 2910 East Kent Ave., is expected to open by the end of 2017. It is part of a new approach being taken to creating affordable housing in the province.
The federation set up the Vancouver Community Land Trust in 2014. Besides the two residential towers now under construction on Kent Avenue, the trust is working in partnership with two smaller, non-profit housing providers to provide more housing on other city-donated land sites, so there will be 358 new homes in total (including the Fraserview Housing co-op that will be in the two residential towers).
One of the non-profits is Tikva Housing Society, which will provide 32 townhomes — also at the Fraserview site — for working, low-income Jewish adults and families. The other non-profit is Sanford Housing Society, which has a 48-unit project on Kingsway slated to open in March. That complex will provide homes to low-income singles — half of whom are people living with mental illness.
The Co-Operative Housing Federation of B.C. is now in talks with the municipalities of Surrey, Maple Ridge and North Cowichan to see if land donations in those communities can result in new affordable housing, said federation executive director Thom Armstrong.
“Co-ops are a vital part of the solution for new affordable housing going forward. They’re all non-profit, so if you are a municipality it’s a smart thing to do with assets of land by investing in a land trust,” said Armstrong.
The waiting list for applicants for the Fraserview Housing Co-op will not be open until next spring. However, both the Tikva Housing Society and the Sanford Housing Society are accepting applications. Both non-profits have contributed almost $4 million to the projects. B.C. Housing also provided $4 million of project development funding.
The federation helped create the Athletes Village Co-op in 2011, that has 84 units, through the Vancouver Community Land Trust. And, in 2015, the federation created the Community Land Trust Foundation of B.C., with the goal of acquiring, creating and preserving affordable housing in the province.
In the past, co-ops in B.C. were mostly built between 1972 and 1992 and were funded by the federal government.
“Part of the problem around housing affordability is we need to build actual affordable housing — for governments to put money on the table and to partner with non-profits like the co-op (federation),” said Marc Lee, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
“But that ended in the early 1990s when the federal government pulled out for budgetary reasons for (financing) new construction. The main barrier to them now being created is upfront capital. But once it’s built you have the revenue stream attached to it from rents. They tend to pay for themselves in 20 to 25 years,” said Lee.
He noted it would take 5,000 new units a year to keep up with the demand for affordable housing in B.C., according to estimates from the B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association.
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