Editor:
In reference to last week’s paper, I would like to comment on the opinion piece regarding the drop in housing starts last year ("Despite province's 'all-front attack,' housing starts dropped last year"). I think there is another important issue of concern to this housing crisis, which is developers benefiting from the relaxing of red tape.
I can speak to my observations in Gibsons because I have witnessed a very aggressive approval process in our town using the province’s new relaxed rules for process in an effort to get housing built. As a result, our town has approved a ton of housing, cutting out public input, yet only to see developers benefiting, not the public, from the speedy approvals by re-listing the upzoned property for a potential huge profit. No shovels in the ground! A loss for the community! A good example of this flipping is “Billy’s Walk” a recent contentious development bypassing public input promising an affordable rental component on Gibsons Way.
There was tons of staff time and effort put into this dense proposal in a rush to get approval. Now it is listed for sale. This should not have happened!
Because the town and the province are so driven to get much needed housing built they have to figure out how to collect some of the development costs upfront from developers, more skin in the game, so to speak, to guarantee these projects get built instead of flipped. Another important issue is better vetting of builders and requirements of completion bonds. We need serious builders making financial commitments to build. We are spending too much time and staff hours (taxpayer dollars) on proposals that will not get built to address our housing shortage.
Judith Bonkoff, Gibsons
