Housing will continue to be a focus for Saanich council in the next two years, the mayor said in mid-term address.
Dean Murdock said after years of not approving enough housing to match the growth in population, Saanich approved 1,081 building permits over the past 12 months, more than three times the normal number, and more than a third were for below-market-rate housing.
Murdock said council did a lot of heavy lifting on housing in the first two years of its mandate by streamlining processes and policies to speed up approvals.
It updated its Official Community Plan and adopted the small-scale, multi-unit housing zoning to create more family-suitable housing such as townhouses and multi-plexes that might be more affordable than single-family homes.
It also enacted a program for rapid deployment of lower-cost housing.
“This program, the rapid deployment program, will help housing providers move through review and approval processes much more quickly to break ground on these much needed housing projects,” he said in his address to council. “We know that this approach is having its intended effect.”
But there is clearly more to be done as a recent housing needs report indicated the district would need to build 7,683 new units before 2026 and 23,559 by 2041 to meet its anticipated housing need.
Saanich is also falling short of provincially set housing targets — it issued occupancy permits for 338 units between Oct. 1, 2023 and Sept. 30, 2024, which was short of the 440-unit target.
But Murdock argued the district has set the table for improvements and more success in the coming years, and there should be more units built in 2025 and 2026.
Next year, Murdock said, there will be more focus on family-friendly housing, and childcare.
He said the district will continue with work on the Shelbourne Valley Action Plan update, a Tillicum Burnside Centre Corridor Plan, the Uptown Douglas pre-zoning project, and refining the Quadra-McKenzie Plan.
Murdock conceded there was a lot of negative feedback over a draft of the Quadra-McKenzie Plan and he noted district staff will report back to council early in 2025 with revisions to address some of the concerns. Most of the concern is over the idea of shifting McKenzie from two lanes of vehicle traffic in each direction to one lane for vehicles, another dedicated to buses and a third protected lane for bikes in each direction.
Murdock’s 30-minute mid-term address touched on progress made on each of the district’s stated “priority areas” including housing, transportation, community well-being, climate action and sustainability.
Murdock said Saanich made headway in each of them, but emphasized transportation saw much of it both in terms of new policies and implementation of new programs.
He said Saanich intends to build on the work done in adopting the Road Safety Action Plan, the first on Vancouver Island, which aims to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries while ensuring safe, healthy and equitable mobility for everyone.
He said next year council will consider a traffic-calming policy to guide investments in traffic-calming measures that ensure neighbourhoods are safer, and the district will implement the fourth stage of its speed-limit policy with a focus on setting limits at 30 km/h on neighbourhood streets.
“We do great work in terms of promoting active transportation infrastructure for people, walking and biking, but I think there’s some neighbourhood safety, safe routes to school, proper crossings, where I think we’ve got more work that can be done,” he said.
Next year will bring a start on the Saanich Operations Centre redevelopment project.
Early in 2025, council will seek elector approval to borrow as much as $150 million for the project, likely through an alternative approval process.
In that process, 10 per cent or more of eligible electors have to submit forms in opposition to the initiative for it to fail.
The $172-million project has been identified as a priority, as the aging site has been deemed unfit to handle future growth. The buildings are 40 to 70 years old, don’t meet building-code requirements and have been deemed to be past their useful life.
Council has already directed district staff to start work to identify a private-sector partner who will develop a master plan for the site at McKenzie Avenue and Borden Street in collaboration with Saanich.
The district would expect a single payment of about $30 million from a developer for the development lands while retaining ownership of the entire site in perpetuity.
About 300 staff based at the current operations centre look after transportation, parks, water, sewer and solid waste in the district.
The hope is that the redeveloped site will include facilities for municipal services as well as rental housing and commercial spaces, with buildings that could be up to 18 storeys. Ten per cent of the new residential units could be available at below-market rates.
Part of the redevelopment will see Saanich move its parks maintenance group to a three-acre industrial property it bought from Don Mann Excavating in the 4000-block of Lochside Drive. A date for that move has not yet been set.
“We fully expect that we will be in a position to start that by 2026. That also aligns with the occupancy at the Lochside property, so we can move our parks operations centre to that location and then the work can begin on redevelopment,” Murdock said.
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