The time has come for pre-manufactured homes, said Councillor Gary Ander on Monday at a meeting focused on housing solutions for Bowen Island. Within five years he added, the cost of building a house will be well over $400 a square foot and will be out of reach for most people. Mayor Murray Skeels added that what drives costs on Bowen is not so much land, but infrastructure. The third out of four presenters at Monday’s Council of the Whole meeting on Monday came forward with a proposal to eliminate the cost of land and infrastructure, while tapping into new funding for affordable housing.
Michael Chapman introduced himself as a director of the newly formed Housing Bowen Society, which aims to find housing solutions that can be put in place quickly to address current needs.
“Everything that we have done so far in our work has led us to believe that the affordability of housing is dire,” said Chapman.
He offered some rough numbers on people affected by the housing situation, based on respondents to Susan Detweilers call-out over social media. Respondents representing 71 households and a total of 152 individuals – including seniors, children, business owners, firefighters, and many people who work full-time on Bowen got in touch with Detweiler to create a picture of Bowen’s housing struggles.
“There are a lot of good things happening in the community, and one of those things is that we’ve started a discussion about what housing on Bowen can look like,” Chapman told council. “The Housing Bowen Society has come up with a project we call Home Bowen, we are proposing building 25 -30 homes, using a pre-fabricated or modular style construction… the advantage of this style of construction is that it’s durable, its quick and its habitable. You’re not creating a ghetto you’re creating homes for people to live in.”
Through this proposal, a 500 square foot studio apartment would cost $625 per month in rent, a one-bedroom apartment would cost $750 in rent and a two-bedroom apartment would cost $1000 per month in rent.
The key to creating housing at these prices, Chapman explained, is the creation of a community land-trust for housing.
“What’s the magic to make these numbers work? It’s not magic, it is one of the older systems of community land tenure, and it is called a community land trust. They’ve been using these in Europe for more than 100 years.”
Chapman told council that there are 300 such land trusts in North America.
“The land owner, in this case the municipality, would take a portion of lands and put them into a land trust. That trust would be at arms length from the municipality, something like a Bowen Island Corporation.”
Chapman said that other than the fees associated with setting up a the legal entity of the land trust, there would be no ongoing cost.
“And the benefits to them would be tenfold,” he added. “There would be housing for the employees that are making the $12 - $15 an hour that most businesses in the Cove are paying, housing for seniors on a fixed income, housing for families who are small and young and starting out and trying to save money… and they also allow for flexibility in the type of ownership.”
Furthermore, he added, there is no risk to the municipality as they are not being asked to put forward any money but rather to just take a piece of land off the market.
Chapman asked council to get back to the Housing Bowen Society with a decision about whether they are interested in setting up a land trust. If so, that would open the door to applying for significant funding from BC Housing and the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
At the end of Chapman’s presentation, Councillor Maureen Nicholson mention that she and Councillor Sue-Ellen Fast did attend a housing workshop that talked about setting up community land trusts.
“It was extremely interesting,” said Nicholson. “I’ll leave it at that, for now.”
