The City of Nanaimo is launching a new initiative that explores pre-zoning land in certain areas, to accelerate the delivery of affordable housing, by removing the requirements for a rezoning. This initiative has been identified as a Council priority action in the  Integrated Action Plan (Priority Action #69). 

This initiative responds to challenges non-profit housing providers have with the timelines associated with rezonings, impacting their ability to secure funding. By streamlining the approval process, this initiative helps projects move forward more quickly.

PROJECT UPDATE

Staff will be presenting the draft development framework to the Governance and Priorities Committee (GPC) meeting on Monday, January 26th. The GPC agenda with the Staff Report will be published on Wednesday, January 21st.

DEFINING AFFORDABLE HOUSING

For the purpose of this initiative, ‘affordable housing’ is interpreted to mean ‘non-market housing’. This is to align the terminology with the recently updated Permissive Tax Exemption Policy (2024), Housing Needs Report (2024) and the Housing Target Orders. Non-market housing is defined as:

A range of housing options, where the cost of housing is lower than the cost of market housing due to some level of subsidization. Non-market housing includes shelters, supportive housing and social housing but excludes Community Care Facilities providing licensed care services, warming centres and rooming houses.

This initiative is proposing to pre-zone land to allow for the development of social housing. Social housing is defined as:

Permanent housing that is subsidized to be lower than the average cost of private-market housing. Individuals and families live independently with no on-site supports. Social housing can include below-market rental, below-market ownership, co-ops, co-housing and temporary modular housing. Social housing excludes Supportive Housing and Shelters.

This initiative does not proposed to include shelters, supportive or transitional housing.

PRE-ZONING FOR SOCIAL HOUSING INITIATIVES

This initiative proposes to amend the Zoning Bylaw by introducing an overlay regulation that would be applicable in certain areas. The overlay would be a voluntary, incentive based option, that may be applied to parcels at the applicant’s request when social housing is provided. The overlay would included eligibility requirements and conditions that would need to be met to qualify for the pre-zoning.

HOUSING NEEDS IN NANAIMO

This initiative responds to housing needs identified in the City of Nanaimo's Housing Needs Report (2024): 

• The City of Nanaimo will need 12,962 new housing units for 2021-2031 (10-years).
• 7,001 (54%) of the units will need to be non-market housing units.
• Of the 54% of non-market units, 5,784 units (45%) need to be social housing, and 1,217 units (9%) supportive housing.

PROJECT TIMELINE 

HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?

Please reach out to staff if you have any questions on this project.