St. Mark’s Anglican / Trinity United Church, located at 2nd & Larch in Vancouver, is set to become the site of 63 units of ‘affordable’ rental housing, 13 units of which will adhere to the accessible and much more affordable median market / ‘moderate’ rental rate.
Places of worship in Vancouver are having a hard go of it.
Land rich but cash poor, burdened by ongoing maintenance that members can ill afford — don’t even mention seismic upgrading … it’s not as if the provincial government is going to step in and fund renovations or replacement of aging infrastructure — an ongoing, decades-long decline in membership, such that the membership lists of many places of worship hovers around 10% of the membership and attendance figures of places of worship in their heyday, way back in the spiritual 1950.
Most of the 364 places of worship in Vancouver, identified by the B.C. Assessment Authority at the request of the Community Services Division of Vancouver City Hall’s Planning Department, face a plethora of dilemmas — how to maintain the physical structure of their place of worship with the dearth of funds available to them to afford necessary renovations and upkeep, while seeking out and encouraging new and younger members to join in their aging worship community, where the average age is near 65.
The role of the modern place of worship in the life of the 21st-century citizen is critical as a place of succour and sanctuary, as a place to fill our spiritual void. If a car needs fixing, it is brought to the mechanic shop. If you’re feeling ill, your local critical care centre or hospital is where you seek medical attention. A place of worship is the place where you go to feel whole, to feel supported, to sing and join with others in spiritual endeavour.
With all the weight and pressures of the world weighing down on our minds and on our bodies, we can rightfully expect a nearby place of worship to help furnish answers to life’s questions no other institution can provide.
The title for this week’s VanRamblings affordable housing series is Faith Groups + Affordable Housing. The City of Vancouver, and the Metro Vancouver Alliance (MVA) — the latter which we will write about tomorrow — have identified a solution to the financial crunch most places of worship in our city face: with the assistance and support of the city and the fine folks involved with the MVA, and with the expertise community housing developers like Robert Brown’s Catalyst Community Developments Society are able to provide to places of worship to develop affordable housing and community services, the potential exists for places of worship to develop a stable revenue stream from the affordable housing built on their site — the cost of construction borne by the provincial and / or federal governments — while creating necessary community services for their own membership, as well as the surrounding neighbourhood community where they are situated.
A case in point is the initiative undertaken by the United Church in 2018 that will see the construction of up to 414 units of low cost, affordable homes on United Church properties across the Metro Vancouver region.
One of the United Church sites set for construction is the Lakeview United Church on Semlin Drive (just east of Victoria Drive) on Vancouver’s eastside, which upon completion will provide 100 new moderate cost rental apartments to citizens in the surrounding community, with rental rates from $700 per month and up, according to information released by the John Horgan government at an announcement ceremony in April 2018, when a commitment was made by the provincial government to spend $12.4 million to assist the B.C. Conference of the United Church of Canada in the redevelopment of church site lands located in Vancouver, Coquitlam, and Richmond (and Nanaimo), just one of many such announcements in 2018.
The affordable housing projects are part of the provincial government’s newly created “HousingHub,” which aims to broker agreements with non-profits, developers, faith groups, property owners, local and federal governments and Indigenous organizations to locate, use or redevelop land in communities where affordability is an issue.
In November of last year, the provincial government announced 72 additional affordable housing rental projects, at a cost of about $492 million, which will see the provision of 4,900 new mixed-income rental homes, set to begin construction in 2020 as part of the government’s new Building BC: Community Housing Fund, one constituent component of a current $1.9-billion provincial investment by the John Horgan government.
The provincial government has committed to building 114,000 new units of affordable “rental” housing over 10 years, in the form of co-op, rental, not-for-profit and market-based housing, the housing geared toward low – and middle-income earners, families & seniors located in 42 communities across the province. A list posted by the province in 2018 showed 29 affordable rental projects — many of which will be built on the sites of places of worship — planned for Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, which will supply a total of 2,877 new homes for citizens living in these regions.
Another 20 developments are planned for Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, 17 for the Interior and six in the northern part of the province, many of which will be built on sites owned by places of worship. Individual buildings will contain units aimed at a mix of income levels, the province announced, and will include deeply subsidized rentals for those on fixed incomes. The housing complexes will include non-profit and co-op options.
“Years of inaction on the B.C. housing crisis left families struggling to get by and unable to get ahead,” Premier John Horgan told those present for the affordable housing announcement. “These new, affordable rental homes are an important step toward addressing the housing crisis and giving families in every part of the province a break from skyrocketing housing costs.”
Please find below a full list of the 72 affordable rental projects set to begin construction this year or next.
72 affordable housing proje… by on Scribd
In Wednesday’s instalment of this week’s faith group / affordable housing / community services series, VanRamblings will explore the role of the Metro Vancouver Alliance, which has partnered with city staff and faith groups across our region — as well as with members of Metro Vancouver’s development community — towards the provision of affordable housing.
In addition, VanRamblings will seek to provide insight into why Vancouver’s underutilized places of worship may very well emerge as a critical component in our city’s plan to build community, to address income inequality and the attendant issues of access & succour encompassing the vast majority of our city’s socially and economically beleaguered residents.
