A comprehensive affordable housing strategy and a strategy for market housing were the focus of a meeting in Quesnel this week.
Mayor Bob Simpson says they are looking at social type housing, seniors housing and student housing on the affordable side of things but he says they are also looking on the market side at new types of housing in Quesnel.
He says Quesnel is more than 80 percent Single Family Residential properties, something Simpson says professionals and other new people moving to the community aren’t interested in.
Simpson says they would prefer condos, row houses and different types of seniors complexes.
Simpson says they are trying to learn from other communities like Prince George that have offered incentives through tax relief, development cost charge relief and through potentially making public land available, to incent builders to come and build some new kinds of housing in the community.
He says they also have to be ready for when money is available through BC Housing and the Federal and Provincial Governments and on that note Simpson says they are now working on the policy front.
He says they plan to have the policy tools lined up in advance of the federal budget.
While they won’t necessarily be passed into law by then as some require public consultation, Simpson says they want to signal that they are ready.