As North Cowichan reviews its options to increase funding for infrastructure upgrades, it appears provincial assistance will not be on the table.
Economist Alex Hemingway says the NDP government created the Growing Communities Fund about two years ago, which offered a billion dollars for communities across BC, but it was a “one-off.”
North Cowichan was able to receive $7.7 million from the fund, the CVRD got $5.6 million, and the City of Duncan received $2.1 million.
However, Hemingway says there is a very real need for ongoing provincial support to municipalities.
Hemingway says while all parties made promises during the October election, and the Union of BC Municipalities called for annual infrastructure assistance funding for towns and cities, a new program was not included in the recent BC budget.
“We know we have this severe housing shortage and we’re hearing from municipalities about infrastructure constraints as they’re trying to build more housing and one way forward to sort of break that logjam is for the province to step in and provide more of that funding.”
Hemingway says the BC NDP has talked about an annual fund tied to housing starts, but it has yet to materialize.
North Cowichan Mayor Rob Douglas the amount of housing that developers are applying to build in the municipality surpasses what they can adequately provide water and sewage service for at the present time.
“While our infrastructure can accommodate over 42 hundred new housing units, which represents about 20 years of growth, we don’t currently have the capacity for that full 10,100. We are looking at some significant infrastructure upgrades to accommodate that.”
Douglas says North Cowichan has now applied twice to the federal government for support through the Housing Accelerator Fund, which can be used to support housing related infrastructure, but without success.
“Unfortunately, there’s so much demand for this program right across Canada we haven’t been successful, to date, in our two applications, but as soon as those opportunities arise we will be applying again.”
He says they have also met with the housing minister to stress that North Cowichan’s critical infrastructure upgrades are necessary to support growth and development and plan to continue lobbying higher levels of government.
North Cowichan is developing a new Community Amenity Contribution policy that will serve as an interim measure while the municipality update the present Development Cost Charges bylaw to reflect rising needs and costs.
Development cost charges are contributions from builders that are used for infrastructure upgrades to support new construction.
To learn more about the CAC and offer feedback, visit connectnorthcowichan.ca/cac
