Quesnel City Council has now given second reading to a housing agreement for the proposed supportive housing project on Elliott Street in West Quesnel.
Mayor Bob Simpson says it is between the City and BC Housing and prohibits certain uses on the site such as drop-in services and shelter services…
“There is another clause embedded in there where if the City of Quesnel complains on behalf of the residents that the operator is not acting in good faith, is not adhering to the stipulations in the contract, that BC Housing only has 60 days to investigate, remedy it or cancel the contract with the operator, so that’s the strongest tool that we;ve ever had and i think may communities are actually going to start looking at that clause.”
Simpson says it is also something that isn’t in place at Quesnel’s downtown homeless shelter….
“The Housing Agreement is the only way that we have any way to control what happens in a housing project once it’s built. We don’t have either of those tools for the current Seasons House for example. So the City of Quesnel, residents of Quesnel, can complain about concerns that they may have about Seasons House, but we don’t have any tools to actually work to investigate those complaints or have BC Housing investigate those complaints except by gentleman’s agreements that it’s the right thing to do. The housing agreement that came before Council is a lesson learned from that.”
Simpson says the final steps would then be for Council to give final approval to the zoning change and changes to the Official Community Plan.
The supportive housing project, if approved, would include 32 supportive housing units and on-site supports for residents only.