By Steve Hubrecht
The Village of Canal Flats has completed its housing needs assessment.
The assessment is an update of the village’s 2022 housing report, and it outlines future growth for Canal Flats, and consequently a need for more housing.
All municipalities in B.C. needed to do a housing report two years ago, an update ‘interim’ report this year, and then another full update in four years. Radium Hot Springs completed its ‘interim’ update housing report earlier this fall, which predicted continued strong population growth there and a need for 405 new housing units in the next 20 years.
Canal Flats has seen its population grow by leaps and bounds in recent years too, and as a result it will need 239 new housing units in the next 20 years, according to its report.
The number may not be nearly as dramatic as in Radium Hot Springs, but is still a lot for a small municipality such as Canal Flats.
Planning consultant Courtney Laurence presented the results of the housing report to Canal Flats council during its Monday, Nov. 25 meetings. She outlined several key themes, including a need for more seniors-specific housing; a lack of in-home care for seniors wanting to stay in their own homes; a need for more rental housing, especially for young residents and new residents; a lack of workforce housing; concern over high rent rates and increasing home prices; and the need for more affordable housing for families, especially single parent households. Another key theme was that council should consider supporting alternative housing options not common in Canal Flats, such as prefabricated houses and more multi-unit complexes or apartment-style developments.
In the 2021 census, 23.3 per cent of households in Canal Flats were rental households, the highest such percentage in the village in the past four censuses, explained Laurence. Additionally, 13.7 per cent of Canal Flats households (a total of 50) experience affordability challenges, and 16.4 per cent (60 households) are in “core housing need.” (Being in ‘core housing need’ is defined as when people are in homes that are unsuitable, inadequate or unaffordable, but which they must continue living in for lack of other options.)
Laurence noted there are 360 homes in Canal Flats with permanent residents, 75 per cent of which are single family detached homes. A majority of these households have only one or two members, but the most common type of housing in the village is a three-bedroom house.
She explained this could reflect an influx of remote workers, who use their extra bedroom(s) as offices, but it could also represent an opportunity to meet some of the village’s housing needs, with homeowners renting out the extra rooms they are not using.
Canal Flats councillor Paul Marcil asked if the report factored in the village’s planned affordable housing development and other projects also in the planning stages, which could create up to 48 more housing units in the village. That, he pointed out, is a “significant chunk” of the 239 needed over the next 20 years.
