Council turns down Habitat request to waive DCCs but will look at alternatives

NEWS/ CITY HALL — Habitat for Humanity will have to keep paying development cost charges, at least for now.

The charges, known as DCCs, are paid on construction of new buildings to help pay the costs of services such as roads and sewer.

Habitat for Humanity says the DCCs are causing a problem with the group’s ability to build homes for low-income families. The group builds about one house a year and is currently working on a duplex on Westsyde Road.

The homes are sold to low-income families at a price that is discounted from fair market value and Habitat carries their interest free mortgage. Habitat does not “give away our houses,” said executive director Jan Lingford at Tuesday’s City council meeting.

Families spend 30 per cent of their income on the mortgage, compared to 50 to 75 per cent for many families.

“Home ownership positively affects people, their heath, their well-being,” said Lingford. “We don’t just break that cycle of poverty, we totally annihilate it.”

With cash being tight, she said, “The payment of DCC’s negatively affects our ability to build houses.”

She asked council to support a resolution to the Southern Interior Local Government Association convention this spring giving Habitat the ability to ask that DCCs be waived.

The resolution would then be passed through to the Union of B.C. Municipalities, which lobbies the provincial government.

Lingford said DCCs for the duplex were $14,000; for a single-family dwelling they’d be about $10,000.

“We as Habitat are trying to make the most of our resources and build multi-family units.”

Coun. Donovan Cavers supported asking staff to develop a report on the implications of the request, even though the deadline for SILGA resolutions is only four days away.

He said the report could be sent directly to UBCM, which doesn’t hold its convention until later in the year.

But he didn’t get much traction on the idea. “I don’t know that we should chase our staff and come back and tell us what we already know,” said Coun. Pat Wallace. “This is a political decision. Our decision is do we want to eliminate one organization from doing that (paying DCCs).”

Acting Mayor Marg Spina was concerned that waiving the DCCs for Habitat would deplete the City’s affordable housing reserve.

Instead of passing Cavers’ motion, council decided to look into alternatives.