A new report found Parksville will need approximately 1,064 new units in the next five years to accommodate a growing population.
The Parksville Interim Housing Needs Report looks at the number of units required for different segments of the city's population, including residents who fall into the "extreme core housing need" — defined by the province as people who spend more than 50 per cent of household income on housing.
The report presented by Blaine Russell, director of planning and building, found just under 12 per cent of renters spend more than half their pre-tax income on housing.
“We sort of have an attainable number in our DCC [development cost charges] waiver provisions, which is based on a 30 per cent criteria, not this more extreme 50 per cent,” he added.
The report was completed as part of legislative changes brought in by the provincial government in order to address housing needs. It looks at anticipated needs for the next five years and the next 20 years.
It found that the city will need to add 68 units in the next five years, and 272 units in the next 20, in order to meet the extreme core housing need. To address the issue of people experiencing homelessness, the report recommends 40 housing units in the next five years and 80 in the next two decades.
“Zoning could be the answer to creating proper recreation — RV living, by converting zoning to existing areas that are at substantially less than lets say the average City of Parksville property cost," said Mayor Doug O'Brien. "I’m suggesting perhaps in electoral districts around us in the [Regional District of Nanaimo] and zoning could change that to create proper RV housing."
The mayor added he is working on something with respect to RV living to address “this latest crisis that has been identified”.
Between March 2022 and November 2024, the city approved 118 building permits for construction of 797 units, Russell said in his report. Council approved zoning and development amendments for 421 units, with 350 of them already built or under construction.
“Although the numbers might be there, we don’t necessarily know that they would address the more critical needs for lower cost housing," said Coun. Mary Beil. “There isn’t necessarily a guarantee that they would, for instance, address the extreme core housing need or homelessness.”
Russell said it depends on the specifics of the applications.
“There may be the odd application that does address components of that, but typically market applications are less likely to do that," he said.
Chief administrative officer Keeva Kehler pointed out the city has a number of existing policies that support building affordable housing units, such as prioritizing affordable housing developments, waiving DCCs and allowing extra density in exchange for adding affordable dwellings.
“Already this council and previous councils have done a lot of what we can do at our level to incentivize those kind of non market housing," Kehler said.
O'Brien added that he has noticed an increase in carriage houses, a home contained in a building separate from a single family dwelling on the same lot.
Municipal governments have "limited tools" to address issues such as high housing costs, said Russell.
"In many cases, we don’t own land. We essentially put stop signs or speed limits on things," he said. "We can put a regulation that stops something from happening. We can put a directional arrow that says we’d like this to happen."
The report, based on data from the 2021 census, as well as part of it on the 2006 census, will be made available to the general public.
The city is required to do full housing needs report by December 2028.
