October 14th regular council meeting
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Eyes on Council. This week was the regular council meeting on Tuesday, and there was a LOT to cover, with fifty different agenda items. I’ll be focusing on those items that have an impact on real estate; if you’re interested in the other items, there’s always the online copy of the agenda and video playback of the council session to catch up on. With that out of the way, let’s get started!
Council started things off with a series of delegations, and interestingly all three had something to talk about that could impact housing issues in the short to medium term in Burnaby.
The first delegation was the Society to End Homelessness, and they came to talk about their 2025 Homeless Count that they did with support from the city and other non-profit groups in the city. The Society talked about how they’ve noticed an increase in homeless needs year over year, and that this suggests there will be increasing need for homeless support services and other forms of shelter going forward. The Society also cautioned that while they did count fewer homeless people than last year, but that doesn’t include any information gathered from schools or youth centres that was provided in previous years. They also cautioned that their count likely captures less than half the total homeless population in Burnaby.
The Heights Merchants’ Association and Heights Residents’ Association had the next two presentations. Both came to speak about the Bus Rapid Transit route that will be going through North Burnaby to get to Metrotown, and both indicated a strong preference for route two, going south along Boundary Road to Lougheed Highway. The Merchants Association argued that only a small fraction of shoppers to their district used public transit, and that there was already sufficient bus availability through the region that a BRT wasn’t needed. The Residents pointed out that option 1 for the route would block the annual Hats Off Day Parade from occurring, which is a major event in the neighbourhood and significant economic benefit for the local community.
From there we moved onto administrative reports to be voted on, accepted and approved. First on this was a proposed zoning bylaw for small scale multi unit housing properties. That motion was amended to maximize the height of new buildings to 3 storeys, including a basement, a max height of ten metres, and a max height of rear buildings on the lot of 2 storeys. The amendment also stated that for property lots larger than 748 square meters, if you have fewer than 3 housing units on the lot then the buildable area is reduced to 25% of the total lot space, and a height of 2.5 storeys. For lots smaller than 748 square meters, if you only build one unit on the lot them you can only build on 30% of the total land, again at 2.5 storeys. This was meant to ensure that people weren’t buying large lots and then building a single large house instead of actively increasing density. The amended motion will return to council soon as a bylaw to be approved and put into force. There was also a proposed amendment for the next council meeting that ensures setbacks are no less than neighbours on either side, a minimum of 1 parking spot per housing unit and no more than 4 units on a lot less than 623 meters square.
Staff presented a report about the Burnaby Shelter and Supportive Housing Strategy. The main points here were that there was a consistent 100% occupancy in supportive housing since opening and that winter shelters are turning people away on a daily basis. Staff indicate that the city needs an additional 22,724 housing units by 2026 to address chronic housing issues, and that 1072 units need to be built to address extreme core housing needs for low-income citizens.
There was an amendment to the five-year financial plan that was meant to address funding given or promised to the Burnaby Housing Authority. This was an expected change in the financial plan and was required because the original five-year plan did not include the promised funding to the Authority.
The Planning and Development Committee also brought forward a report about the proposed amendment of the Amazing Brentwood master plan. Council felt that the density of the development was too high, considering what the city was getting back in terms of the number of affordable housing units provided by the developer. It was also noted that the density was higher than if previous density allocation models had been used, and that previous bylaws would have gotten 20% of units to be considered affordable, as opposed to the 10% the project was committed to providing. There was also a discussion of development funding, with Council noting that this project wasn’t required to pay density bonuses to the city until their developments reached forty storeys in height. There was also a discussion about the switch to developers providing amenity cost charges and development cost charges instead of the previous density bonus system, and how that was meant to avoid site by site negotiations with developers and instead create a more uniform approach to funding amenities and infrastructure.
An update on the federal government housing accelerator fund was discussed, with city staff noting that Burnaby has been awarded 43.4 million from the fund, in 4 annual installments that occur until 2027. Later funding is contingent on delivery of 11,340 housing units, which is lower than the city’s expected need of 22,724 units. Staff report that the city is about 1100 units above their current target, and that 76% of all accelerator funding is going into capital projects.
The end of the council meeting was a series of votes on different motions. The previously discussed bylaw amendment to the five-year fiscal plan was given first, second and third reading and now waits for a vote on final adoption. The Burnaby 2050 Official Community Plan was also given third reading after a contentious public hearing last week.
Third reading and final adoption of a bylaw for inclusionary housing was adopted. This bylaw defines inclusionary rental units as those provided by the developer as part of their housing agreements with the city, and which have to be offered to eligible families at below market rates. The inclusionary rental rate for those units is an amount not greater than the median rental rate for a similar unit in that neighbourhood, and eligible families are those whose rent, if they obtained the unit, would be 20-30% of their gross household income. The bylaw also requires that developers replace any rental unit demolished to create the development with a new rental unit, and that unit must be rented out to the original tenant at the tenant’s previous rent. The bylaw also states how much inclusionary housing is required in each quadrant of the city; 10% of all units must be inclusionary in developments in Southwest and Northwest Burnaby, while only 5% of units are required to be inclusionary in Northeast and Southeast Burnaby. This will apply to all R5-R8 zoning, and the bylaw also states that if a developer provides excess inclusionary units in one development, that capacity can be used off-site in other developments in the same quadrant.
Finally, final approval was given to create two new financial accounts. In line with the move to amenity cost charges and development cost charges, the city has created a Burnaby Community Benefit Bonus Amenities Reserve Fund and a Burnaby Community Benefit Bonus Housing Reserve fund. Both of these were required by the changes in the Local Government Act, and make more clear where funding is being allocated in order to finance infrastructure and development amenity construction.
That’s it for this week’s council meeting. The next scheduled council meeting is Tuesday, October 28th, so I’ll have an update in November.
