Private developers looking to provide employee housing will have more flexibility moving forward.
On Feb. 26, council approved further review of two of five private developer employee housing projects, while directing staff to "broaden the scope" to try and better accommodate the other three (see Pique, Feb. 28: "Rezoning continues for private employee-housing projects").
On March 26, staff brought the revised guidelines back for council's consideration.
The updated guidelines remove the requirement that all projects in question must be 100-per-cent employee housing, now permitting limited amounts of new, unrestricted market housing "to support project viability, the design quality and employee housing livability and affordability objectives," said director of planning Mike Kirkegaard, in a presentation to council.
The guidelines now also allow the projects to include both rental and "owner-occupied" units (rather than rental only).
"There were several other revisions, more minor nature, just kind of solidifying some of the language that was already in the guidelines, and for consistency with those two revisions," Kirkegaard said.
Other changes intend to address sales price escalation for ownership units (sales prices will be allowed to increase by the percentage change in the core Consumer Price Index for Canada from the date of purchase to the date of sale—in line with the Whistler Housing Authority's (WHA) standard agreements), and give consideration to the WHA's rental and ownership waitlists.
Rental rates will be allowed to increase in line with the maximum allowable increase.
"These guidelines would apply equally to any current rezoning application, and any that may be received that proposes employee housing as a community benefit to realize a change of use, increase in density or increase in the accommodation capacity for a property," Kirkegaard said.
Which means that other proposals with market components that were previously submitted under the guidelines but then rescinded—including one on the long-contemplated Zen lands—can now be resubmitted, noted Councillor Cathy Jewett.
"And I would imagine that this could potentially add a lot of value to the property if it has a market housing portion in it," she said.
Public information meetings will still be held before zoning bylaws are brought forward for each project, followed by a full public hearing process in which all residents can state their case for or against.
All correspondence received on the projects to this point will also be included in the process.
