An aerial of downtown Victoria and surrounding neighbourhoods. 96% of Victoria's rental housing stock was built prior to 1980, according to a municipal report, a reality that is pushing the City towards a regime to limit the redevelopment of aged rental buildings into rental-only new-build projects. Citified.ca
With 96% of Victoria's rental housing built prior to 1980, redevelopment concerns force City to act on zoning restrictions
MIKE KOZAKOWSKI, CITIFIED.CA
Published July 3, 2019
As part of the City of Victoria’s pursuit of a Residential Rental Tenure Zoning (RRT) program, whereby existing rental properties will be zoned to rental residential-only use prohibiting the strata titling (for condominiums) of suites even upon redevelopment of aged rental buildings, planning staff are recommending a phased approach to proposed zoning amendments dictated by a building’s age.
A consultants study of Victoria’s rental housing stock identified that 96% of the approximately 500 purpose-built rental buildings (containing some 16,000 residences) within the municipality were constructed prior to 1980, while nearly half of those buildings were built prior to 1960, and half of those prior to 1940.
“It is these older buildings that will require significant capital improvements and that are at risk of redevelopment,” reads a statement in a report compiled by staff. “Therefore, staff recommend an approach for implementing RRT zoning that allows staff to prepare three separate zoning bylaw amendments whereby subject properties will be grouped based on age, with a priority on bringing forward older properties first for Council’s consideration.”
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In other words, with a fifth of the City’s rental housing stock having appeared prior to 1940, officials intend to focus the RRT program on the oldest buildings first to amend zoning bylaws that will prohibit changing the use of the parcel on which they stand for anything other than new-build rental housing.
Should a landowner wish to build something other than rental housing, a rezoning process would be required.
Under one option presented to council, by late summer or early fall municipal staff plan to hold public engagement sessions with members of the public and landowners to discuss the program, in addition to pursuing an RRT study. Feedback would be collected and presented to council.
Under a second option public engagement would not be sought and staff would rely on the findings and recommendations of an RRT study alone.
The first public hearing for zoning amendments to the City’s oldest rental properties will be held at a yet-to-be determined date, although is is likely to occur by early 2020.
Councillors will decide on Thursday which option to support.
Today's zoning restrictions reflect failures of the past
In the summer of 2016 a report compiled by Citified identified over 20,000-units of purpose-built rental housing throughout the Capital Region (including the City of Victoria) were slated for redevelopment due to age.
"We now have situations on southern Vancouver Island where insurance companies are unwilling to extend insurance terms for aging buildings. What this means is a landlord will be forced to conduct immediate upgrades. And these are not cases of building mismanagement or a lack of maintenance, they are a reality of aging inventory that must be overhauled in order to qualify for insurance," said David Hutniak, CEO of LandlordBC, at the time.
Hutniak also added that the industry had begun warning civic officials of the state of the rental housing market since the 1990's. Over the decades little had been done by municipal councils to encourage the development of new purpose-built rentals (such as easing zoning and density restrictions to make rental developments viable) until the 2010's when a surge in private capital made development feasible due to a slowdown of the condominium market in a post-2008 economic landscape, while housing pressures boiled over due to low vacancy rates and stagnant supply.
The City of Victoria is the first municipality on the south Island to pursue a program limiting the redevelopment options of landlords faced with replacing aging rental housing, a move that civic officials believe is now a necessity due to the potential for a mass reduction in rental inventory given the high volume of replacement-ready properties.
The RRT initiative is in addition to the City’s plan to require future rental buildings comprised of over 60-units to include 20% below-market, or affordable, rental apartments within their mix of suites.
Although such a high threshold has been controversial with the development industry arguing that financing for such projects could be difficult to secure, council's support for the measure has not wavered. C
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