Burnaby Housing Authority tasked with filling deeply affordable housing gap

BC Parkway and SkyTrain Expo Line in the Metrotown area. (City of Burnaby)

Just over a year ago in June 2022, the City of Burnaby spent nearly $30 million to buy a 1982-built, 25-storey tower in the Metrotown area to preserve its 181 co-op residential units as affordable homes for seniors and low-income individuals.

This move leveraged $132 million in provincial government funding through BC Housing as part of a wider strategy to acquire, preserve, and renovate three existing affordable housing properties across the city.

In March 2023, the federal government announced $124 million in funding to support the construction of two affordable rental housing projects in the Royal Oak and Edmonds areas by Catalyst Community Developments Society, with the municipal government leveraging the investment by also providing over $31 million.

Moving forward, starting later in 2024 and beyond, such investments, developments, and municipal-involved partnerships could come under the City of Burnaby’s new Burnaby Housing Authority, instead of the existing practice through the municipal government’s general administration.

And its sole focus would be to catalyze and expedite such deeply affordable housing supply.

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If all goes as planned, by the end of 2023, the arms-length Burnaby Housing Authority — a housing corporation wholly owned by the municipal government — will be created, comprised of its own board of directors, leadership, and experienced team of experts in real estate, construction, and financing.

During a session with media on Wednesday, Burnaby mayor Mike Hurley and chief planner Edward Kozak provided an update on the process to create the housing corporation, stating that it requires the provincial government’s final approval. As well, Burnaby City Council is still in the process of ironing out certain specifics on the body’s governance, and the City-owned land and capital reserve funding that will be endowed to the housing corporation’s activities.

The entity will catalyze new housing by optimizing City-owned lands and buying new sites for development. After provincial approval, incorporation, and the official launch, like any organization that is just starting up, it will take some time for the housing corporation to ramp up its operations.

But “nimble, proactive, and direct” is how Kozak described the work and operations of the housing corporation, once it is in full swing in its operations. They would be able to make key decisions in a timely manner when opportunities arise, as opposed to going through various layers of bureaucracy.

It will be operated by “people who have experience in the industry, and a proven track record of delivering units quickly.”

“It’s a way to leverage other funding partners and bring them to the table on projects that are much more shovel ready, and have a much stronger proof of concept at the time those specific deals are struck,” said Kozak.

Hurley stated the strategy is “an opportunity to move things quicker through the processes, and encourage more timely funding from the other levels of government.” He brought up the example of the municipal government providing the initial funding to get the ball rolling on the two Catalyst housing projects, before the federal government rolled in with funding much later on.

Funding set aside from the municipality’s density bonusing revenues from developers will be used for such projects, and the housing corporation — under the provincial government’s municipal corporation framework — would have the ability to borrow money.

“We went through many years of not much, if any, rental housing being built in our city, and for that we’re now playing catchup. We’re getting there quickly, now that we’ve put all of our policies in place. We see this as an opportunity to move things a lot faster and in a more productive way,” continued the mayor.

It was emphasized that the primary impetus of the housing corporation is to catalyze as much deeply affordable housing as possible.

The housing corporation is seen as another tool in Burnaby’s toolbox of comprehensive strategies to quell the housing affordability and supply crisis, and provide the municipal government’s contribution to the solution to the regional issue after historically falling behind on meeting real and changing needs.

About five years ago, the work of the Mayors’ Task Force on housing led to the creation of the City’s rental use zoning and inclusionary rental policies, which has since catalyzed a significant volume of new market and below-market rental supply.

According to City statistics, there are currently 1,640 units of secured purpose-built rental housing under construction in Burnaby, with 1,078 units being non-market rental units.

“We anticipate that will increase and grow in the coming months and years. We start to see the fruit of those policy changes and direction,” said City spokesperson Chris Bryan.

Over the 10-year horizon through 2030, the City has a goal of catalyzing about 5,700 secured purpose-built rental homes, including over 2,200 deeply affordable units for annual incomes under $41,500. So far, the rental units that are in the pipeline for low-, moderate-, and high-incomes — between $41,500 and $124,000+ annually — are above their respective category targets, but there is currently a forecasted deficit of 1,600 units for the lowermost income category.

Kozak said the housing corporation will address the “critical gap” of deeply subsidized housing that has not been met by the existing toolbox of strategies underway, which has so far collectively catalyzed a combined total of over 12,000 rental homes that are now in-stream — in the proposal, planning, or construction process. Prior to the implementation of these strategies, Burnaby was not only seeing a dearth of new secured rental housing supply, but it was also shedding many units, particularly in the Metrotown area.

So what is Burnaby’s definition of deeply affordable? Their general metric, says Kozak, is 20% below the market median of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation rents for an area, which is about 50% below market.

Hurley says 2,000 units generated by housing corporation would be the expected minimum over the coming years, but he anticipates the municipality’s various targets will be exceeded overall.

While the overwhelming emphasis is to build deeply affordable homes, some projects could have a mix of some market rental units on a case-to-case basis, if it helps support the financial feasibility of subsidizing the building’s more affordable units.

Kozak says there is “no one size fits all mandate for the housing authority,” as it is “intended to provide need where the housing need is demonstrated.” Eventually, he added, affordable homeownership supply could also be generated by the housing corporation.

With the provincial government ramping up its affordable housing initiatives through BC Housing and non-profit housing operators, it was also emphasized that the Burnaby Housing Authority would collaborate, not compete, with the efforts of other governments, agencies, and organizations.

“Certainly, we don’t want to step on the toes of other governments or the community housing sector in the various aspects and services that would be delivered through the housing authority,” continued Kozak.

Other examples of municipal governments establishing their own housing entities and development corporations include the Vancouver Affordable Housing Agency of the City of Vancouver and Toronto Community Housing of the City of Toronto. Toronto Community Housing, wholly owned by the municipal government, is the largest social housing provider in Canada and the second largest in North America.

Whistler Housing Authority, a municipally-owned corporation of the Resort Municipality of Whistler, established in 1997, focuses on creating and operating affordable housing options for employees of resort businesses and their families.

Earlier this year, the City of Surrey reinstated its wholly owned Surrey City Development Corporation, which has a mandate of mainly pursuing market residential, commercial, and industrial developments as a strategy to catalyze new economic growth in the jurisdiction.

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