Campaign Issue: Housing

Housing is (once again) the main issue in a Whistler election. The growth of the community has outstripped our supply, and it’s been exacerbated by the loss of suites in homes in existing neighbourhoods, due to the gentrification of those neighbourhoods. I bristle when I hear “council has done nothing on housing” when in fact, Council’s major achievements this term has been the delivery of 158 units of employee housing in Cheakamus Crossing and the approval of 35 units of employee housing at Nita Lake and Nordic Estates. Is it enough? No. But… Now that the Whistler Development Corp. is operating, I think we’ll be able to deliver much mor housing and deliver it quickly.

Building more new housing still won’t fix the problem, so here are some other solutions to increase our housing stock. 

Infill Housing

I support infill housing because it helps reverse the gentrification of our neighbourhoods, it would add more affordable housing to Whistler’s inventory, and add increased property tax revenue without increasing our development footprint, and it would keep more families in Whistler.

Changes to Zoning

We could also encourage redevelopment in existing neighbourhoods by allowing the rezoning of properties for higher density (think turning a duplex into a 12-bedroom unit) another idea would be to allow businesses to occupy (via rezoning and renovation) property in commercial or mixed-use zones.

Soaring house prices and rock bottom vacancy rates aren’t an inevitable consequence of success, just as their opposite aren’t an unsolvable riddle, all it takes is some policy changes and some action.