How to create accessible, affordable, and adaptable housing for people of all ages

Yesterday, I posted some of the key findings from a recently released survey about the current state of seniors housing in Langley. The survey was created by the Triple A Seniors Housing Workgroup. This workgroup includes members from the Langley Seniors Community Action Table, Langley Seniors Resource Centre, and the local chapter of CARP.

The workgroup also put on a seniors housing summit in the fall of 2014. They hosted speakers from organizations such as BC Housing, SPARC, CMHC, and local municipalities. Insights gleaned from the summit; recommendations on how to deliver affordable, accessible, and adaptable housing; plus case studies of the recommendations have been complied into a newly released report.

The list of recommendations from the Triple A Seniors Housing Workgroup report are as follows:

THAT THE CITY OF LANGLEY AND THE TOWNSHIP OF LANGLEY:

1. Hire a social planner who, in consultation with a Seniors Advisory Committee, will advise and make recommendations for age-friendly policy, with the explicit goal of increasing affordable, accessible, and adaptable housing options for seniors and other members of the community. Among other duties, the social planner should also function as the dedicated Affordable Housing Coordinator to guide all affordable (and subsidized) housing projects to completion.
2. Adopt Abbotsford’s Harmony Flex-housing model: adaptable and accessible low-income home ownership through housing agreements, with accessible secondary suites for seniors and persons-with-disability. Require minimum 10-25% of housing developments to subscribe to this policy.
3. Pursue Demonstration Housing Projects through partnerships with the Provincial Government, BC Housing, CMHC, and developers, as a means to create affordable, accessible, and appropriate senior housing.
4. Engage with Metro Vancouver Housing Corporation with a view to taking advantage of its recently expanded role in increasing the supply of mixed-income housing regionally, especially for seniors in The Langleys.
5. Conduct an audit of existing purpose-built rental stock, and existing subsidized housing with reference to housing which is accessible and adaptable for senior occupants (following Burnaby’s profile), and flagging economic end of life to facilitate planning for maintenance, renovation, or potential redevelopment.
6. Collaborate actively with senior levels of government to evaluate, maintain, and preserve existing affordable housing stock that meets the needs of low-income seniors.
7. Establish comprehensive development zone guides which specify Inclusionary Zoning Policies, prescribing a percentage of affordable, accessible, and appropriate senior housing within market developments.
8. Create an Affordable Housing Reserve Fund for development, maintenance, and preservation of affordable senior housing stock.
9. Conduct a municipal land audit to flag land which might be made available (donated, sold below-market, leased) or utilized for affordable, accessible and appropriate senior housing (i.e. decommissioned or unused or surplus school sites, church property).
10. Educate developers and citizens demonstrating innovative below-market rental and home ownership models to encourage early adoption and implementation.
11. Monitor progress of affordable and adaptable housing policies, specifying senior housing options, and publishing in the annual report.
12. Encourage and support developers and builders to include adaptable/inclusive features in new home construction.
13. Institute or revise Adaptable Housing Policy to reflect future need due to the projected increase of aging residents and consequent mobility challenges.

THAT THE TOWNSHIP OF LANGLEY:

1. Take steps to support the preservation and enhancement of existing Manufactured Home Parks by conducting an economic and social analysis in order to create baseline information.
2. As a Municipal member of the SAFERhome Standards Society, collaborate with prospective developers, SAFERhome Standards Society, and the Homeowner Protection Office (a Branch of BC Housing), to initiate a universal design pilot project.

The recommendations in the report primarily deal with affordable, accessible, and adaptable housing. Missing from the list of recommendations from the Triple A Seniors Housing Summit was about what to do outside of the home. An affordable, accessible, and adaptable home is great, but the built-form of Langley must also be accessible for people of all ages and abilities. This is why building a walkable community is so critical to ensuring that people can have fulfilling lives no matter their means or abilities. It’s no surprise that Downtown Langley has a higher than average seniors population because of its walkability.

Some of the joint recommendations would be more relevant to the Township of Langley, especially around new development. In the City of Langley, emphases needs to be placed on ensuring that the existing affordable housing stock remains affordable, is made more accessible, and is in a state of good repair.

Both the City and Township of Langley need to consider the recommendations in this report. Please check out the full report for more information.

Metro Vancouver Regional District looking to build 500 new units of affordable housing

Metro Vancouver Housing - Sutton Place. Image source: Metro Vancouver Regional District

This weekend, I was at the Triple A Senior Housing Society’s HOPE4HOMES conference. This conference focused on what can be done to make life more affordable for seniors in Langley. Housing is a critical component when it comes to affordability. When people pay more than 30% of their income towards housing, they are living in unaffordable housing.

Seniors in our community who rent are the most vulnerable when it comes to the increasing cost of housing. They are on fixed incomes that are not keeping up with ever-increasing rents. At the conference, I learned that some 3,000 seniors live in unaffordable housing in Langley. Two-thirds of those seniors live in the Township of Langley.

The current federal government and provincial government have committed billions of dollars over the next decade for new purposed-built affordable housing. In BC, the commitment is to build 114,000 new units of affordable housing over the next decade.

The federal and provincial governments are not building this affordable housing, they are providing the funding. They are looking for non-profit housing societies and local governments to build and operate these new affordable housing units.

In Langley, there are around 250 new units of affordable housing being built and operated by non-profit housing societies that is funded through the provincial government. While this is a good start, if we have 3,000 seniors today that need affordable housing (and thousand of younger people who also need affordable housing), we need to be building affordable housing at a larger scale.

The Metro Vancouver Regional District is a federation of municipalities from Langley to Bowen Island. As a collection of municipalities, we have a long history of working together to tackle big challenges.

The regional district provides affordable housing for some 9,000 people today in 49 sites throughout Metro Vancouver. This housing was originally built in the 1970s and 1980s with the support of the federal government. The feds got out of funding new affordable housing in the 1990s until a few years ago. This is one of the reasons why we have a housing crisis today.

With the renewed interest from the feds and province to building affordable housing, it is time that our region gets serious about building affordable housing at scale.

The Metro Vancouver Regional District is looking to collect $4 million per year in new property taxes throughout the region to build at least 500 new units of affordable housing over the next decade. This money will be combined with significant federal and provincial funding, and land donated by municipalities. It is expected that 70% of these units would be low end of market rental, and 30% rent geared to income to ensure affordability.

This $4 million per year would translate to an additional $4 per year in property tax per household in our region.

If this program is successful in the first few years, I hope that the region scales it up because we need to be building thousands of units of affordable housing per year in our region.

I should note that the type of affordable housing in this post is not supportive housing for people transitioning out of homelessness, or who have complex needs. This type of housing with wrap-around services is being handled by other programs.

Langley Seniors Housing Survey Released

Back in 2013, the Langley Seniors Community Action Table, Langley Seniors Resource Centre, and the local chapter of CARP came together to develop solutions that provide affordable, accessible, and appropriate housing for older people in Langley. The Triple A Seniors Housing workgroup was formed. Langley has a large population of seniors which is growing rapidly.

People would like to age in place; maintaining relationships with friends and family, and retaining access to shops, services, recreation, and entertainment. The Township of Langley developed an Age-Friend Strategy which attempted to present solutions to allow people to age in place with dignity. I thought that the strategy didn’t go far enough.

Gross household income of people surveyed. Select graph to enlarge.

The Triple A Seniors Housing workgroup also wanted more to be done. Between October 2013 and 2014, the workgroup surveyed 514 seniors in the community. The survey looked at demographic, housings, and income. The results of the survey were recently released. The findings of the survey are:

1. Affordability is a large concern for the majority of respondents in the low-income range. 52 percent of all respondents indicated that they spent more than 30 percent of their gross household income on housing costs. 75 percent of those in the $30,000 or less income range spend over 30 percent of their household income on accommodations. In the $0-$40,000.00 group, 67 percent find themselves in the same boat.
2. Seniors in our community are ‘making ends meet’ by cutting back on the necessities of life. 215 people overall indicated they cut back on living costs such as food and prescriptions giving housing a spending priority, perhaps to avoid eviction and homelessness. 34 percent of those with income of $30,000 or less cut back on these expenses.
3. The need for accessible housing is a priority of many residents as they look forward to aging in place and their health and mobility changes. 37 percent of survey respondents indicated personal limitations that might affect where they live, the majority being mobility related.
4. Seniors in our community are not accessing financial supports designed to assist low-income renters and homeowners to provide for their housing needs. Only 42 out of 517 reported receiving government assistance for housing with approximately half naming SAFER as the source. None reported receiving HAFI. A recent study by the Seniors Advocate found that many seniors are not aware of these programs.
5. Most senior respondents would prefer to remain in their present community as they age and regardless of income, they are hoping to move to assisted living when they are no longer able to live independently. Recent research by BC’s Seniors Advocate raises concern about admission regulation that restrict the provision of service that would support aging –in-place and avoid or delay referral to residential care (i.e. nursing home).
6. Safety, a vital aspect of appropriate housing, was a concern to 20 Langley City respondents who felt unsafe in their home. Current reports indicated that while violent crimes, including home invasions are decreasing, property theft (mail, auto, business break-and-enters) are increasing substantially.
7. Secondary suites are not a popular housing option for seniors.
   

   

   Preferred housing types of people surveyed by income bracket. Select graph to enlarge.

8. The majority of seniors who plan to move in the next 5 years would choose to own, and 47 percent expressed a preference for rental housing, often for reasons of affordability.

For more details, please check out the full report. The workgroup also developed another report which presents solutions to providing triple A housing for older people in Langley. I’ll post about that tomorrow.

A recap of Metro Conversations #2: Renewing rentals without kicking people to the street.

From Tuesday night's Metro Conversations. Select image to enlarge.

On Tuesday night, the second Metro Conversations was hosted in Langley City. Metro Conversations is based on the format of SFU City Conversations where experts and attendees engage with each other about a top-of-mind urban topic. Metro Conversations takes City Conversations from Downtown Vancouver to the rest of the region.

This latest conversation was around purpose-built rentals. How do we ensure that people at different income levels have access to rental housing that they can afford, and how can we ensure that the rental housing stock in our region is kept in a state of good repair?

One of the experts at this conversation was Marilyn Fischer who is the chair of Triple A Senior Housing, and is an active member of the Langley Seniors Community Action Table. Her perspective was from tenants currently living in affordable rental housing, with a focus on Langley.

Another expert was Dr. Penny Gurstein who is the Director of the School of Community and Regional Planning at UBC. Her research focuses on strategies for housing affordability, and she brought her perspective based on that research to the conversation.

The final expert was David Hutniak who is the CEO of Landlord BC. Landlord BC’s mandate is to support a balanced and healthy rental housing market with an emphasis on private sector solutions. His perspective was from responsible landlord’s who managed purposed-built rental buildings.

The discussion between the experts and other people who attended was lively, and covered a good amount of ground. I wanted to share some of the ideas that stood out to me.

Many rental units are affordable because they are older and worn-out. While landlords in BC do have the responsibility to comply with health, safety and housing standards, some landlords take this responsibility more seriously than others. One of the ideas proposed at the conversation was to update provincial laws and local government bylaws to ensure that rental units and buildings are maintained more consistently.

At some point buildings reach their end-of-life. A building’s envelope, electrical, heating, and plumbing systems start to fail. Buildings do need to be replaced eventually. In BC, a landlord is only required to give 2 months noticed to terminate a tenancy to either renovate or demolish a rental unit. At the discussion, everyone agreed that this minimum requirement was unacceptable. Landlords should be required to work with tenants to find them new accommodations, and tenants should be treated with respect and dignity throughout the process of a relocation.

While local governments can set policies that landowners can voluntarily adhere to regarding tenant relocation when a purpose-built rental building is demolished, it would take a change in provincial legislation to make relocation policies that respect tenants a requirement.

One of the big questions of the evening was should older, and in some cases sub-standard, rental units be relied upon to be the only source of affordable rental housing. The clear answer was no.

It was acknowledged by many in the room that both the federal and provincial governments have policies in place to encourage home ownership, but for many, this is no longer possible.

At the same time, it was also acknowledged that the feds and province are also now stepping up to provide housing for people who have no or very limited income. What is currently missing is support for people in the middle who are slowly being priced out of both the ownership and rental markets.

To provide affordable rental units for people in the middle, both provincial and federal government support will be required, working with local governments.

There was discussion about bringing back housing co-ops into Canada which were successful in providing affordable housing. The Whistler Housing Authority was also cited during the conversation as an innovative way to not only provide affordable rental units, but also affordable home ownership.

There were many other ideas discussed last night, and this post only covered a small sampling of these ideas. While there is no magic wand that can be waved to provided instant affordable rental housing, there is certainly a path forward after listening to Tuesday night’s conversation.

Councillor Patrick Johnstone from New Westminster, Councillor Mathew Bond from the District of North Vancouver, Councillor Kiersten Duncan from Maple Ridge, and I are helping organize Metro Conversations. We are currently working on putting together podcasts from both the first Metro Conversation and this conversation, so you can hear the full discussions. Our next conversation will be in North Vancouver in May.

Metro Conversations Presents: Renewing rentals without kicking people to the street.

Metro Conversations are once again bringing conversations out of the big city and into the ‘burbs. This is the second event in a series of meet-up discussions aimed at creating a larger conversation, in person and online. Started by four like-minded young City Councillors, Metro Conversations offers a unique format bringing experts in the field together with citizens for two-way dialogue and discourse within a strict 1-hour time limit. Beyond a lecture, it is a sharing of ideas.

“This time we’ll be discussing options for revitalizing old apartment buildings that respect current tenants, and maintain affordability,” said Councillor Nathan Pachal, the main coordinator of this month’s event. The Langley event is the second in a series Pachal is organizing with Kiersten Duncan from the City of Maple Ridge, Mathew Bond from the District of North Vancouver and Patrick Johnstone of New Westminster. The group is continuing the ongoing series with similar events later in the year in their own communities.

“This issue isn’t restricted to Vancouver” noted Councillor Kiersten Duncan. “We lost over 50 low-cost rental units in Maple Ridge during the Sunrise Apartment Fire where 100 people lost their homes. We’re currently working with a developer to rebuild the affordable housing that we lost, but it’s challenging.”

Municipalities across the lower mainland are struggling to upgrade dilapidated apartments without negatively impacting current residents.

“Some of the older buildings don’t meet modern building codes for fire and safety such as mandatory sprinkling for condos four storeys and higher” pointed out Councillor Mathew Bond. “Our panelists include experts from Triple A Senior Housing, LandlordBC and a Professor of Community and Regional Planning. We’re excited to have such diverse expertise – it should make for a great exchange” added Councillor Patrick Johnstone.

Join the conversation with guests:

• Marilyn Fischer, Chair - Triple A Senior Housing
• David Hutniak, CEO - LandlordBC
• Penny Gurstein, Professor and Director, School of Community & Regional Planning and Centre for Human Settlements - UBC

This free event will take place on Tuesday, February 28th from 7:00-8:00pm at the Douglas Recreation Centre in Langley City. Doors open at 6:30pm and everyone is welcome to come and take part in the conversation.

Seating is limited, so while attendance is free and open, we recommend that you reserve your seat.

Reserve your seat at Eventbrite

July 22 Council Meeting: Short-term and longer-term safety improvements for Grade Crescent proposed. Further $20,558.34 in community grants awarded.

Back in May, Langley City staff and consultants presented two basic concepts for a renewed Grade Crescent at an open house for people to provide feedback on. The major challenge with Grade Crescent today is that it is a rural road in an urban setting. It lacks concrete sidewalks, protected bike lanes, and safer crosswalks. Some people also treat Grade Crescent like a speedway because of its rural design.

Of the two basic concepts proposed, the following basic concept was selected for further refinement based on feedback received.

Selected basic concept for a renewed Grade Crescent. Select image to enlarge.

The selected design has similarities to the renewed 203rd Street, and was selected as “it provides added safety of an off-street multi-use pathway providing a physical barrier between motor vehicles driver, and pedestrians/cyclists.”

The actual build-out of a completely renewed Grade Crescent is a medium to long-term goal. Detailed design work is being planned for the 2020/21 time frame. It is unknown when construction would start at this time.

The detailed design will incorporate feedback received from the public. I commented that the selected basic design has a proposed 2.6 metres for the walking and cycling which is narrower than the up to 3.5 metres for walking and cycling that is available on 203rd Street (on each side of the road). I am hoping that my feedback will also be incorporated into the detailed design.

In the meantime, there are safety concerns that residents in the areas have brought to the attention of council at our July 8th meeting. City staff will be completing a traffic speed and volume count on Grade Crescent at 201A Street to assess if additional traffic calming is needed along the corridor in the short-term.

As a completely renewed Grade Crescent is likely five or more years out, staff will be investigating the following measures to improve safety along the Grade Crescent corridor for council to consider in the 2020 capital budget:

• A new pedestrian crosswalk on Grade Crescent in the 201A Street area complete with rapid flashing beacons and raised roadside islands, narrowing the road width at the crossing.
• A new median barrier on 208th Street to restrict eastbound Grade Crescent left turn movements.

The asphalt sidewalk on the north side of Grade Crescent between 201st Street and 203rd Street is scheduled for renewal this summer which will include tree trimming and widening.

At our Monday night meeting, Langley City council approved the recommendations of City staff regarding Grade Crescent.

Langley City council allocates a portion of the money received from the casino each year for community grants. This year, $168,000 was made available for these grants. Council allocated $145,930.65 in community grants earlier this year. Because there was remaining funding, council approved the following additional community grants which totalled $20,558.34:

Boys and Girls Club of Langley: $3,650.00
Codependents Anonymous - 12 Step Group: $508.30
DLBA – Remembrance Day Banner Installation: $886.64
Langley Child & Youth Mental Health & Substance Use Local Action Team: $1,500.00
Langley Division of Family Practice: $1,500.00
Langley Food Bank: $2,500.00
Rotary RibFest Langley: $2,500.00
SMART Recovery: $600.00
Southgate Church – Back to School Community Event: $4,500.00
Terry Fox Run Langley City: $866.40
Triple A Senior Housing Society: $547.00
Volunteer Cancer Drivers: $1,000.00

Tomorrow, I’ll be posting about other items covered at Monday night’s council meeting. You can also read yesterday’s post about the meeting.

July 11, 2016 Council Meeting Notes: Part 2 of 3. Engineering department busy, Fire Service resource challenged, community grants awarded

As I posted yesterday, Monday night’s City of Langley Council Meeting was packed with content as we had many quarterly updates from the RCMP and municipal departments. I covered off the first part of Monday’s meeting yesterday, and will be continuing with part 2 of 3 today.

Councillor Storteboom gave his update on Metro Vancouver as he is a director on the regional district’s board. The big news he highlighted was Metro Vancouver’s opposition to the Massey Tunnel replacement project as currently proposed by the province. You can read more information about this at Metro Vancouver’s website. Councillor Albrecht and myself both said that we supported Metro Vancouver’s opposition at Monday's meeting.

Councillor Storteboom also noted that all municipalities that signed onto the provincial government's Climate Action Charter are now “zero-emission” in their operations. I asked if this was because of carbon offsets, and was informed that this was the case. Carbon offsets allow a community to continue creating GHG emissions, but pay to support projects that reduce GHG emissions elsewhere.

Finally, Councillor Storteboom noted the opening of the new Metro Vancouver Barnston/Maple Ridge water pumping station which will supply Maple Ridge, the Township of Langley, the City of Langley, and Surrey.

Councillors Martin next gave a Tourism Langley update. She noted that hotel owners are in favour of maintaining the current 2% hotel tax. Council will be voting on this later in the fall. She also noted that overnight stays are up in Langley compared to the same period last year.

Next, council received an updated from Rick Bomhof who is the Director of Engineering, Parks and Environment. The City of Langley has been busy keeping our community functioning. Some of the major projects on the go include:

• Ongoing boulevard maintenance, hydrant maintenance, and sewer line robot video inspections.
• Nicomekl River Gabion Wall Replacement.
• Traffic Signal Upgrade at 200 Street and Grade Crescent.
• 51 Ave Waterman Replacement (East of 200 Street).
• 200 Street Paving.
• Brydon Lagoon Outlet Culvert Replacement.
• Production Way, Fraser Hwy, 56 Ave Detail Design for Future Upgrade.
• Traffic Calming along 48 Ave at Simonds Elementary School.
• Water & Sewer Computer Model Updates to help find deficiencies in our systems.
• Brydon Lagoon pathway upgrades to improve accessibility and address the stair issue that was recently featured in the news.

I asked if the City of Langley posts this information online, so people can see all the projects that the City is working on. I was told no, but that it could be looked into. Ideally, it would be nice to see this on a map where people can click to find out more information on the various projects.

Next Director of Recreation, Culture and Community Services Kim Hilton provided an update on events and recreational opportunities available in the City. She thanked everyone who helped out during the very wet Community Day. One of the things that I’m proud of is that we provide a lot of opportunities for people to engage in positive actives through our programs. I’m sure that many of the programs that the City offers ensures that people have positive outlets for their energy, reducing negative activity in the community.

We received an update on Langley City Fire-Rescue Service by Fire Chief Rory Thompson. Medical calls still make of 81% of calls that our first responders attend to. As noted earlier this year, Thompson said that drug overdose calls are still way up compared to last year. He noted that in one 24 hour period in January, our first responders attended to 11 drug overdoses.

The City of Langley also had significant fire losses on May 3rd when two house on 196A Street caught on fire. It was a loss of over $1 million.

Our Fire-Rescue Service is extremely busy. Besides responding to calls, the service also has a role in preventing fires by doing build inspections. We have around 3,000 inspectable properties in Langley City. I asked how we were doing with inspections. We aren’t keeping up. It is clear to me that we have some resourcing issues that need to be addressed.

Council also approved the following community grants from the second grant application intake period.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Langley: $3,656.00
Boys and Girls Club: $1,700.00
Healthier Community Partnership: $1,500.00
Langley Children’s Society (Child Development Centre): $1,400.00
Langley Senior Resources Society: $4,297.68
Parkinson Society BC: $158.60
Ron Dunkley Memorial Society: $1,500.00
Terry Fox Run: $800.00
Triple A Senior Housing (LACL): $1,800.00
Wagner Hill Farm Society: $1,000.00
You’ve Gotta Have Friends: $2,500.00

Tomorrow, I will conclude my notes about Monday night’s council meeting.