Prince George City Council gave approval to have a standardized design catalogue created for small-scale multi-unit housing in the City.
At last night’s (Monday) meeting, City Council received a presentation from Small Housing BC, outlining steps to improve housing delivery through the development and use of standardized designs, in addition to a related streamlined permitting process specfiic to the use of those plans.
“This is an exciting housing initiative that supports our housing action plan by exploring standardized home designs in a streamlined permitting process for small scale, multi-unit housing,” said Director of Planning and Development Deanna Wasnik. “The project has the potential to make it easier, faster, and more affordable to deliver new housing options in Prince George, while helping us meet our community housing goals.”
“This project provided the City with an actionable framework to guide the implementation of those two housing action strategy items,” said Long-Range Planner Megan Hickey. “The overall end objective of this project is to put the advancement and delivery of small scale multi-unit housing development into action in the City of Prince George.”
According to Co-Executive Lead of Planning Innovation with Small Housing B.C. Tamara White, Prince George’s average household size is now 2.4 people, a downward trend from the Canadian average that used to be around 4-5 people.
“Now we’re seeing more single-person households, more couples without children, families with only one to two children, empty nesters, single seniors, and other household configurations with just fewer people ,” White explained. “Meanwhile, our housing stock skews older and larger in Prince George. Nearly two-thirds of homes are more than 40-years-old, and then depending on the materials and maintenance of those homes, many could be reaching the end of their functional lifespan, which will start opening up more opportunities for redevelopment in existing neighbourhoods.”
White added the cost of construction is increasing as well, making housing more costly and more difficult to build, while putting “downward pressure” on the size of homes people can afford.
“A growing number of smaller households and seniors are looking for smaller, ground-oriented housing options, not necessarily apartments, but duplexes, rowhouses and accessory dwellings,” she said. “There’s a real mismatch between what our housing stock offers and what residents increasingly need.”
White noted the review of permitting found the current system relies on front-end clarification and on iterative review without much differentiation by project type.
“That’s slowing things down, especially as small scale multi-unit housing application volumes start to grow,” she said.
White put forward five recommendations:
- Improved application guidance with clearer upfront direction
- Tiered permit stream differentiating permit processes based on project complexity
- Streamlined permitting specifically for pre-approved designs
- Digital permitting initiatives (already underway in Prince George)
- Some recommendations on interdepartmental alignment and streamlining
Additionally, analysis concluded a phased and hybrid implementation strategy represents the “most appropriate” approach for Prince George. This would combine:
- CMHC Standardized design integration
- Existing local design integration
- RFP/RFQ commissioned designs
Small Housing B.C.’s full report can be found here.
“Really the overall goal is for us to continue to address housing challenges in the City through increased delivery of small scale, multi-unit housing forms,” Hickey added. “Proposed next steps would be funded through a provincial grant as well as operating budgets.”
Hickey noted the more immediate next steps would include targeted zoning bylaw updates, as well as a release of an RFP to produced standardized housing plans.
“I see Kelowna’s the leading case study, we don’t have to get into what everybody else is doing, but I think it’s important that we look at best practices no matter what we’re doing, and it looks like this does it,” said Councillor Brian Skakun. “I look forward to moving ahead on this and building lots of homes.”
Councillor Garth Frizzell pointed out three things about the approach he found useful.
“You talked about the need for faster, more predictable approvals, I like that, the fact that we’re looking at realistic and buildable designs for our area, thank you, and again, faster approvals, number one,” he said.
Councillor Cori Ramsay said this moves the city in the right direction.
“I think it’s North Saanich, has just been given quite the slate of recommendations from the provincial advisor for not achieving housing targets that they now have to undertake,” she said. “There is really a risk by not moving forward and enhancing our development approvals. If you’re not achieving those housing targets we are seeing those special advisors go into municipalities and really rip apart those community-built bylaws that have been put together by community engagement and really make recommendations to speed up that processes, and at what cost. This is a good thing for us.”
Councillor Tim Bennett said while Prince George’s permitting time has been good compared to some other municipalities, there are still concerns about wanting to move faster.
“Any opportunity for us to create more opportunities for rentals, more opportunities for people to get into the housing market is great,” he said. “A couple days ago I saw a new study that our average house price for single detached in Prince George is almost $550,000 now. We’re seeing that number continue to increase, and opportunities for us to create smaller builds, give opportunities for first-time homebuyers or those looking to downsize the opportunity to stay in the housing market and be here in our community is great.”
Councillor Ron Polillo said he appreciated the “Prince George-specific” nature of the report.
“When you’re talking about faster approvals, practical local designs, predictable permitting, that’s all music to our ears,” he said.
City Council unanimously voted to direct administration to proceed with the next steps to facilitate the implementation of a standardized design catalogue.
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