New Westminster is taking action to accelerate the construction of affordable housing by prezoning potential sites in the city.
At a Jan. 20 workshop, council voted 5-2 in support of forwarding the zoning amendment bylaw (non-profit housing development) to its Jan. 27 meeting for first, second and third readings. Council also voted 5-2 to require that no public hearings need to be held for applications under the proposed bylaw.
“We are facing a housing crisis like the rest of the Lower Mainland, and we really do need to facilitate the delivery of more affordable housing,” said Lynn Roxburgh, the city’s manager of housing and land use planning. “One of the components of delivering affordable housing is the need for senior government funding; it's really a detail that makes all these projects we've seen in our city possible.”
Phase 1 of the housing acceleration work consists of amendments to the city's zoning bylaw. It allows affordable rental housing projects to “skip” the rezoning process if they meet an eligibility criteria – something known as prezoning.
What will be permitted on prezoned sites?
Liyang Wan, a housing planner with the city, said the proposed zoning amendment bylaw sets out prezoning requirements for affordable rental housing projects in New Westminster. She said rental housing projects will be able to forego rezonings if they meet all of the city’s criteria:
- The project is no more than six storeys.
- The property is owned and operated by a registered non-profit housing provider or a non-profit housing cooperative.
- The units are rental only.
- The project's long-term affordability and residential rental-only tenure is secured via a legal agreement.
- The projects are located in areas where six-storey buildings are already envisioned in the official community plan (OCP). This would be sites designated Residential-Multiple Unit Buildings in the OCP.
Where will six-storey buildings be allowed under prezonings?
Roxburgh said the initiative builds on the work done by the City of New Westminster as part of the 2017 official community plan.
As part of the extensive consultation during the OCP process, Roxburgh said the city considered where medium-density residential projects (up to six storeys) should be located in the city. She said some of the areas where this type of housing is permitted includes existing rental buildings in the Brow of the Hill neighbourhood, lower 12th Street, and in areas designated as Great Streets.
Jackie Teed, the city’s director of planning and development, stressed that prezoning would only apply to properties that are already designated for this kind of growth.
“They just wouldn't have to rezone in order to achieve it,” she explained. “Those designations came out of the very extensive official community plan work that we did. So, there was a lot of community input in relation to where those designations were.”
Coun. Daniel Fontaine suggested a map would be helpful in painting a clearer picture for council and community members about where prezoned affordable housing projects could be built.
“It's not a broad ‘everywhere,’” he said. “There are very targeted sites.”
Can prezoned buildings exceed six storeys?
The proposed zoning amendment bylaw states that prezoned sites can have buildings of no more than six storeys.
Mayor Patrick Johnstone questioned if the city can “find a way to remove the rezoning step” in other places in the city where higher density allotments already exist, such as in transit oriented development areas.
Roxburgh said staff had given a lot of thought to that possibility, especially in consideration of the province’s new expectations about height and density for housing. She said that is something staff have identified as work to be done in Phase 2 of the affordable housing acceleration initiative.
For Phase 1 of the initiative, Roxburgh said staff focused on the six-storey projects that New Westminster is already starting to see, before considering how to facilitate eight- and 12-storey buildings.
Fontaine questioned if the city, through “a stroke of a pen,” could change a building’s height from six to 30 storeys on a prezoned site.
In order for a taller building to be built as part of this initiative, Roxburgh said the city would have to do a comprehensive process to come up with a new zoning district.
“What we've written is very specifically for a six-storey form,” she said. “And so, we would have to do research about what is that form and massing, what are the design guidelines we want to put in place, and where do we want to allow it in the city? Because the sites that we've identified here specifically do not allow that as a land use.”
Roxburgh said council would also have to amend the official community plan to allow for taller buildings, something that is a “significantly larger” scope of work.
How and why?
Roxburgh said the City of New Westminster has been able to undertake this planning work thanks to funding from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s housing accelerator fund. The city received a $11.4-million grant from CMHC in 2024 to support initiatives to improve the housing approval process, increase housing supply, and expand housing choice.
Given the competition for funding for affordable housing, Roxburgh said CMHC looks at whether approvals are already in place at the local government level. To help influence that process, she said there is a “great opportunity” for the city to prezone some sites to allow for the construction of six-storey, wood-frame apartment buildings.
“We've come up with a range of conditions to make sure that it was really about achieving affordable housing that's delivered by non-profit housing providers and delivered by coops, not the market in general,” she told council. “And then we have other conditions in place to make sure that we're really facilitating that right location, right conditions.”
Wan said the affordable housing acceleration process seeks to remove regulatory barriers, streamline processes, and unlock opportunities to enable the delivery of affordable rental housing projects.
“The focus of this initiative is to enable the delivery of affordable rental housing projects that are fully owned and operated by non-profit housing providers and housing coops,” she said. “These projects are dependent on senior government funding.”
Wan said this initiative is distinct from the city's inclusionary housing policy, which requires private developers to provide a percentage of affordable housing units in their developments.
How much housing is needed in New West?
The City of New Westminster’s 2024 interim housing needs report determined about 8,137 new units are needed between 2024 to 2029, of which 2,311 will be needed in the form of affordable rental housing.
Wan said the city’s “housing target order” from the province requires that more than 4,400 net new units need to receive occupancy permits during that same time period. Of those, about 1,189 of those units must be below-market rental units.
“The reason why prezoning is being pursued is because in order to achieve the densities and the land use that are envisioned in the city's OCP, most properties in New Westminster need to be rezoned,” Wan said. “For many affordable housing projects, this rezoning process can be quite time consuming and often will put their project funding at risk.”
Residential only?
The city’s proposed zoning amendment bylaw also sets out a variety of regulations that projects must meet. This includes building regulations (such as site coverage and setbacks), parking and access requirements, and permitted accessory uses.
In regard to accessory uses, projects would be permitted to have childcare, home-based businesses, and small-scale place of worship.
Johnstone said he would like the city to be “flexible and open” about the type of accessory uses permitted on the ground floors of these projects.
“I think there's an opportunity for corner stores or coffee shops or other small retail things like this,” he said. “I recognize that they create, in some cases, financial burdens to actually building affordable housing, and we don't want to necessarily force people to do that, but there's a difference between us incentivizing or encouraging it and us not precluding it or not putting a barrier in the way.”
Coun. Ruby Campbell said she’d like to see how the city’s retail strategy can be incorporated into ground-floor uses of these buildings. She suggested there may be opportunities for cafes, corner stores, and makers spaces.
Teed said staff have been dealing with time constraints to get the work in front of council and brought forward for its consideration in time to meet CMHC’s housing acceleration fund deadline.
“There are a number of components that different members of council have commented on that we definitely are taking notes on and will continue to do that work, to bring that along into the zoning and the OCP amendments and such as we continue to move along,” she said. “But as with a lot of what we're doing right now to meet all these requirements; we're having to go quite quickly and can't pack all of the pieces that we would normally prefer to do at each step.”
What about parking?
When considering how to amend the city's zoning bylaw and what changes to include in the bylaw, city staff conducted research and interviewed people in municipalities that have already implemented prezoning for affordable housing projects. (Victoria, Saanich, and Squamish have implemented a prezoning approach to facilitate affordable housing.)
According to Wan, New West staff found that there is typically a complete elimination or reduced parking requirements for affordable housing projects in other municipalities.
To tailor the prezoning requirements to New Westminster, she said consultation included an information session and group interviews with non-profit housing providers and online engagement with community members through Be Heard New West.
“Both groups would like the city to consider balancing the need for parking, specifically for family households, with the economic viability of affordable rental housing projects,” Wan said. “And so, a general preference for a reduction, but not complete elimination of minimum parking requirements for these projects were stated.”
A staff report said reduced parking regulations are proposed for sites within 250 metres of frequent transit. For other projects, the parking rate would be the same as a market-rental project.
What about amenities and infrastructure?
Wan said community members also highlighted a need for infrastructure and amenities in the city to keep up with housing development.
Fontaine questioned the city’s plan to ensure that the amenities and infrastructure are kept up to par.
Teed said that a citywide financing growth strategy process is running parallel to affordable housing acceleration initiative, as part of the overall implementation of the provincial housing legislation.
“As part of that, we're working interdepartmentally to understand what will be, in fact, the strategy to ensure that the infrastructure and amenities that the community needs in order to support the quality of life in the community as we grow is maintained,” she said. “So that work is really where that question is being answered.”
Supported 5-2
At its Jan. 20 meeting, council voted 5-2 in support of the staff recommendations – but that may change when the bylaw comes back to council for its approval.
Fontaine said he was supportive of most of what was being proposed but could not support the initiative as it does not include provisions for holding public hearings regarding these applications. He said he’s heard from people who feel “disconnected” from the city and are only participating through surveys.
“If we do this process, which is a good process and good recommendations, but we ignore, we take away the public hearing component, I think we may run the risk that we lose a big chunk of the community that might actually be very supportive of this, but because of the process, they may not,” he said. “So, for me, unfortunately … having the public hearing, that for me is a bit of a line in the sand that I really do think that we need to have.”
Coun. Paul Minhas also thanked staff for the detailed report, but voted against the recommendation, citing a concern about the “disconnect” that community members have with the city.
Johnstone, and councillors Campbell, Tasha Henderson, Jaimie McEvoy, and Nadine Nakagawa supported consideration of the zoning amendment bylaw (non-profit housing development) at council’s Jan. 27 meeting.
Henderson said “urgent calls for action on affordable housing” and the need for funding for senior levels of government are often made in New Westminster council chamber.
“We have both here,” she said. “So, we need to move on them if we're going to meet our affordable housing targets … and have someone else pay.”
Henderson said the areas being prezoned as part of this initiative are sites that have already been designated for this level of density in the OCP.
While council has had an opportunity to approve a few affordable housing projects, Henderson said applicants have not been “banging down the doors’ to create these projects. She said this process would provide the city with an opportunity to “move a bit quicker” when opportunities come its way.
Following the meeting, Fontaine reached out to the Record to clarify his position. He said he voted against the staff recommendations to demonstrate his objections that no public hearings will be required for these projects, but that he plans to vote in favour of first, second and third readings when the bylaw comes to council for its consideration at its next meeting.
More work ahead
Roxburgh said the proposed zoning amendment bylaw (non-profit housing development) marks a “key milestone” of the CMHC housing accelerator fund work in New West – completion of Phase 1.
Phase 1 focused on zoning bylaw amendments that will allow eligible projects to forego rezoning if they meet proposed criteria. In Phase 2, staff will explore additional opportunities through official community plan amendments and development variance permit streamlining.
“There will be a second phase to this initiative,” Wan said. “That phase will commence in the spring and will focus on amendments to the official community plan, as well as looking at how to streamline the development approvals process to allow for the affordable rental housing projects to be delivered.”
