The City of Maple Ridge has the capacity to have an estimated 80,500 more housing units in the city, and that’s good news for planning the community, according to a consultant.
Maple Ridge City Council did some work on the city’s housing strategy at their April 23 workshop meeting, with a view to comply with the province’s new requirements around land use, and innovation in tackling the housing crisis.
There are 33,663 existing units in Maple Ridge, with many more to come. The fast-growing city will see another 10,634 net new households built from 2023 to 2033 according to projections. Based on estimated future construction, using the official community plan, consultants say the city has capacity for a total of 114,000 units.
“What this means is that the city has power through it’s policies, incentives, and regulations to direct growth where growth is desired,” said Matt Thomson from Urban Matters.
He outlined key issues for the housing strategy, and one is planning for growth.
From 2006 to 2021, Maple Ridge added 22,000 new residents, and 8,200 new households. To create a complete community, one that has access to daily needs, essential services, parks, employment and entertainment, new growth needs to focus on densifying neighbourhood centres, including the Town Centre, the Hammond Area, transit-oriented areas, and major transit corridors, said the report.
Another key issue is the need for rental properties, and councillors heard the vacancy rate is consistently below three per cent, rather than in the healthy 3-5 per cent range. The strategy calls for more purpose-built rentals.
Approximately 80 per cent of all housing in the city is owned by occupants, while about 20 per cent is rented. Across the region, the average rate is 38 per cent renter households.
Affordability is another key issue. In 2021, Maple Ridge had 4,160 households in core housing need – people living in dwellings that are inadequate or unaffordable. Half of those were rental households.
The households which are more often experiencing core housing need are those led by single mothers, at more than 30 per cent, and those where the head of the household is under 25, which are at 29 per cent.
“This affordability gap means that Maple Ridge needs approximately 2,000 new affordable units over the next 20 years to address this underlying need,” said a report from staff.
Some strategies for city hall to guide growth include:
• Prioritizing needed forms of housing, including housing to address homelessness and affordable rentals
• A developer incentive program for needed housing forms
• Density bonusing for developers
• Reducing or eliminating minimum parking requirements to reduce housing costs.
• Fast-tracking approvals for priority housing types.
• Waiving development charges for priority housing.
Coun. Korleen Carreras addressed transitional housing and supportive housing. She said Maple Ridge has three supportive housing facilities for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, each with about 50 units, and believes that is “quite high for our community.” However, she said there is a need for units for the “next level” of housing, which is where residents could find affordable units when they leave the supportive housing
“I think that next level of housing is really integral for the folks in our community,” she said.
Coun. Sunny Schiller said she wants the city to get involved in providing affordable housing.
“I want to see us as a municipality just focus the majority of our efforts on non-market housing,” she said.
She said the municipality is becoming increasingly involved in housing and development, and she would like to see the city get a successful project done, in partnership with a non-profit, in the next year, and “take the lessons forward into further work.”
There is still work to be done on the strategy by council. New provincial legislation requires the city to have a housing needs report that anticipates needs for the next 20 years, and it must be endorsed by the end of 2024.