Cortes Island’s Forum on ‘Rental and Ownership Opportunities’ came to Mansons Hall on Thursday June 13. There were breakout groups on what people were looking for in rentals, affordable ways to become an owner and renting your property out. Regional Director Mark Vonesh brought pizza. The whole board of the Cortes Community Housing Society appears to have turned out.
The first speaker, Billy, was the newest member of that board. She described her journey from being homeless to becoming a land owner, and now providing rental accommodation to others. It was an inspiring story, but also one that Cortes Currents does not yet have permission to share.
Sadhu Johnston, Executive Director of the Cortes Housing Society, introduced Vonesch: “I have to say I’ve worked with a lot of politicians in my time, a lot. We’re really, really lucky to have someone that is as concerned about this issue as Mark is. It makes a huge difference when he’s at that table in Campbell River fighting for these things.”
Vonesch responded by reminding everyone he was only one of 14 people sitting at the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) Board table and could not do anything without the support of the whole board. He expressed appreciation for the number of people on Cortes who were trying to improve the housing situation in their community.
‘This has to be a community effort, if we’re going to get things done.“
He was especially pleased about ‘having Sadhu as leader of the Cortes Housing Society, the people who’ve been on the Housing Society board and those who joined the board recently.”
That said, Vonesch proceeded with an overview of the situation on Cortes Island, starting with a recitation of known facts.
“From the last few surveys, 1% to 1.5% of the people in Cortes are homeless. They’re couch surfing, they’re living in tents, they’re living in sheds, they’re living in trailers without power, and they’re squatting in the woods.”
“We have 200 people on the waiting list for Rainbow Ridge. So there is a huge demand for rental housing at market level, but also below market.”
“Two years ago, the Housing Survey said the average person in Cortes could afford a $209,000 mortgage. The average listing price at the time was $749,000. So there is this huge distance between what the average person can afford on Cortes, and what is actually available and able to purchase.”
“I think we have to tackle housing from a whole bunch of different ways.
How can we incentivize the free market to add more rentals? How can we change our zoning bylaws to bring in more rentals? What can we do from a government build side, as in building Rainbow Ridge? What can we do with just donations and using debt?”
“A lot of the other places in the Strathcona Regional District don’t have the same issue we have. One third of all the homes in Cortes are sitting empty, roughly 240 homes. Not all those homes are full-four-season homes, but it does show you that we are a tourist community. Lots of people have homes here because they want to spend a couple weeks, or a month here, and our economy relies a lot on tourism.”
“So, we have this housing crisis that is also impacted by the tourism but we also rely on tourism. We’re trying to find the right balance, where our businesses that rely on tourism can thrive and the people that live here have secure homes.”
“10% of the islanders are living in housing that is unsuitable, whether because they only have it for 10 months, they don’t have heating, or they don’t have water etc. They don’t have the basic amenities that a lot of people have. We also have a huge disparity of wealth. Cortes has the lowest average income in the Strathcona Regional District at $34,000 a year. The provincial average is about $53,000. We’ve got a unique situation. I think we really need some solutions that work in other places, and some new ideas.
Director Vonesch explained the big jump in this year’s property taxes.
“Land prices on Cortes increased more than they did elsewhere in the SRD, which increases our tax burden.”
He used a real estate transaction as an illustration.
“Let’s say a house is on the market for a million dollars and someone says I’ll take it for $1.5 million. They’re willing to pay a higher price, but paying more increases the value of all the surrounding properties.”
Vonesch proceeded to list the things the community has accomplished.
The Cortes Housing Society owns 55 acres, a small portion of which is set aside for the Rainbow Ridge affordable housing project. Any tourists renting short term accommodations now pay a 3% tax, which provides the Housing Society with about $50,000 a year.
“We just opted into the short term rental requirements, where you can only rent an Airbnb on your primary residence, This was imposed on British Columbian communities with over 10,000 people, but an ‘opt-in’ for smaller communities. I ran a survey with the Housing Society in December, three to one of the respondents in favor of opting in.”
“It’s definitely pissed some people off, but for me it’s about closing the door for people just buying-out of Cortes and turning it into an Airbnb business, which elevates land prices, eroding our housing, rental housing stock.
“We’ve also had a housing survey. People want progress. I think it was 72% percent saying ‘yes, let’s do some increased density. And at the same time, let’s do it smart. Let’s think about the ecosystems that we’re impacting. Let’s do it in a thoughtful way. Let’s just not say yes to everything and particularly let’s focus on density that’s going to add housing for the folks on Cortes.”
Sadhu Johnson was the next speaker.
“We’ll talk to three main areas today: (1) the Cortes Community Land Trust, which is a new approach that we’re taking,; (2) affordable home ownership, regular land ownership or creative solutions like Billy talked about. (3) The third is land use.”
“The first is community land trust. This is not unique to Cortes, but we’re aiming to create little intentional communities across Cortes. Basically they’re multi generational and resilient, long term, secure housing, and immediate, not five or ten years down the road. We want to do this right away.”
“We’re aiming to get donations, or low interest loans, and buy existing houses. Many houses that are now being sold to off-islanders. They are not very affordable for on-islanders. That’s one of the challenges Mark was just talking about. We, as a community, could buy those houses, bring them into community ownership and rent them out. We could then develop additional housing on those properties over time. That’s really the idea.”
“If we can accommodate ten people on each property that we buy, and we do that ten times, that’s ten percent of the island’s population is now living in secure housing. This is not insurmountable. We bought our first one and I think there’s opportunities to continue.”
“What kind of properties should we be looking for? and what kind of housing should we build on those properties when we get them? The nice thing about these is that they already have septic. They already have wells, they already have some houses, so we can get them used right away. It doesn’t take so many years to develop.”
“On Lopez Island they’ve done a similar approach, and ten percent of the island’s population is in community housing. People are living in a community. They’re sharing agriculture. They’re doing a lot with renewable energy. Not everyone has ten acres, but everyone’s got community. That’s maybe the trade off. That’s the approach that we’re thinking about. I really love the model because it addresses housing immediately.”
“We prevent houses from going to folks that may be here for short periods of time; instead they are occupied by people that are here long term. It’s opportunity based, we can purchase when we find the right properties. Ideally once we own two or three of them, we could leverage those homes to borrow the money to buy additional ones and we could just keep going.|
“I’m really seeing this as a living, contributing, endowment to the community because the rents that come in can then be used to buy additional properties. That can grow over time.”
“We bought our first property. It’s just down the road and has two houses. We see some opportunities to build some additional housing on that. It’s three acres, so we’ll go through a rezoning.”
“In one of the breakout sessions that Billy is going to be leading, she’ll ask, ‘if you’re considering renting, what would you like to see on that land? What is attractive to you?’ We can design and put that in. We would be looking to pursue a rezoning right away. That’s category number one, Community Land Trusts.”
Category two includes Rainbow Ridge, where we’re working on developing 24 townhomes . We’ve been trying to get BC Housing funding. We’ve put a really strong application together. Sandra has been leading the charge on this project and helped to make sure we own it, which is a huge step forward as a community. Now that we’ve been turned down by BC Housing for the third time, we’re pivoting to go to a different approach – to see how we can get housing quickly.”
“Again, at the rental breakout session that Billy is going to be leading, we’re really interested to know what you would like to see there? We’re going to try to build it out in phases, most likely. We can’t try to do 24 at once, but even if we did four or six or eight over multiple years, we can build them.”
“Rainbow Ridge is a walkable community: walk to the co-op, the school is right across the street. That’s really a great vision, and we’re going to be implementing it. We’re just not going to do it all at once, we’re going to do it over phases. We’d like to start as soon as possible, because we received money from the regional district, thanks to Mark, to build the access road and to start to clear the land. We’ll use the money that we already have to start building. That’s the plan. We’re going on our own. Cortes style, we’re going to leave BC Housing behind.”
Mark Vonesch: “I think it’s important to note that BC Housing, for some reason, has had a mandate to fund urban places. Our denial was not because we’re Cortes, or because we don’t have a good idea or it’s not a viable option. No other rural places received a grant (to build large projects).”
Sadhu Johnston: “BC Housing does subsidize rent. Maybe we build it first, and then we apply for them to subsidize the rents, rather than trying to get it built with them in partnership. If we can build some housing and then they can make the rents cheaper, that would be great, because there are people here that can’t afford a market rent. You know, it’s hard to provide subsidized rent without someone subsidizing it.”
“BC Housing is doing great work across the province, and we’ve got to figure out how to work with them, given the small communitiy that we have.”
“The last category is access to land. A lot of people don’t want to rent. They want to build their own homes and it’s really fun to do that. We’re trying to figure out how we can make access to land so people can build their own homes.”
“I know of at least two property owners on the island that are considering the same approach. So if we were to do this on Rainbow Ridge and two or three others did it, you could see a number of opportunities that would emerge where people could get a plot of land and build their own home on it. It’s a really viable approach, and other places have done it.”
“We’re thinking about this approach for the other end of our property, down by Cemetery Road. We’re thinking of a smaller development there during phase two, but maybe it’ll be phase one as well.”
“The basic idea is that we create building sites, make them ready for people, and then people could rent the land for 99 years. So you’re not having to pay four or five hundred thousand dollars for a piece of land. Ideally, we would get some loans, make some grants, and we would put in septic, water, power. People could rent about a quarter acre, or lease a quarter acre. 99 years is, effectively, your land and you build your own home. We, as a community, continue to own the land. So if you decide to sell it in 10 years, you’re not tripling the amount that you’re getting for that land. You can make money selling the house, but you’re not cashing out on land.”
“We want to create multi generational communities. A lot of folks maybe own two or three acres and they’re getting older. It’s a lot to maintain. They could rent the property out through a 99 year lease, build a little cabin and live in a community without all the responsibilities of maintaining septic and all that stuff.”
“We’re thinking that we would get some loans to build all the central infrastructure, so you don’t need to build all of that yourself. There’s hopefully different ways across the island that this model will take off. If you’re not subdividing, then you can share septic, and you can share a well, and all of these things that make creating housing here so expensive.”
“I’ve had conversations with Vancity. We could even create a mortgage program where you could get a mortgage and that would pay for your land lease, as well as the construction of the home. Then you pay it off over time. So, this model can be used at Rainbow Ridge or other places. we’re really interested to hear your thoughts on it. If you want to build your own place on Cortes, is this a model you’re interested in? We’re going to have a breakout session on it, and Mark is going to lead that.”
Mark Vonesch: “The exciting thing about it is that you pay $100,000, let’s say, for a 99 year lease on a chunk of land. Let’s say you spend $150,000 on a tiny home. Now you’ve got a $250,000 mortgage and the survey I mentioned earlier said the average person can afford $209,000. If there’s a young couple doing this, suddenly we’ve got land in the hands of people at a place that’s statistically where it needs to be. For me that’s huge and I’m really excited about it.”
Sadhu Johnston: ”Some people really want five or ten acres, but some people are happy to be in a sweet little walkable community like down in Orcas Island. This is one solution and maybe in 10 or 20 years you build up equity, you sell the house, and then you buy land. It could be a transitional opportunity. So Mark’s going to lead the breakout on that. We really want to hear your thoughts on the ins and outs of it. Is that an attractive kind of approach?”
“We, as a community, need to provide more opportunities for more people to have ownership in their homes.”
“Lots of folks just want to own the five acres in the woods. I’m really interested to understand what that looks like? What are the barriers? Billie was talking about the approach that she took, which is the life estate agreement. She got a great deal on the property because the former owner can live there for the rest of their lives. That’s a really unique solution and maybe there are other innovative approaches to land ownership.”
“There’s a zoning bylaw update underway. This is a once in a decade opportunity to influence what’s happening on this island around what we can build, where we can build, and how we can build.”
“Mark, do you want to talk a little bit about that from the regional district perspective?
Mark Vonesch: “Land use planning on Cortes is controlled by what’s called EASC, the Electoral Area Services Committee, which is the four rural directors. They have a committee called EASC and we control zoning applications and land use.
“Right now, EASC is a friendly place. We are at a really unique place to basically get what we want. I’m really trying to listen to the community, understand what ideas are possible, but put forward something that’s progressive and thoughtful. I know that we’re going to get a yes. There’s no fight at the SRD board to get this new zoning bylaw done. It’s more of a question of ‘what do we want to do?’ They’re taking input.”
“So we’ve got a form at the back of the room that you can sign, that has some general stuff we’ve come up with and we think is going to make a difference. It’s looking at questions like ‘what do we want to allow in zoning?'”
“One unique idea would be creating a ‘Cortes Housing Society’ zoning category. So when they buy a chunk of land, they can automatically, as long as it aligns with the OCP, put some tiny houses on it, or do some other creative stuff.”
Sadhu Johnston: “We’re really trying to get a message to the regional district that we do want more housing as a part of this zoning by law rewrite. There’s five things that we’re asking for.”
“First, is larger cottages. Right now you can only have a 600 square foot cottage, which is fine maybe for a single person, but if you have kids it’s kind of small. So we are advocating for larger cottages.”
“The second is to allow more houses on existing properties. If you own five acres, why only one cottage? – that’s a lot of space. We’re basically recommending that they up-zone. So right now if you’re allowed one cottage and one house, then you would be allowed two houses and two cottages. Basically to up-zone it, but it’s not across the board. There’s nuance that you’ll see in the letter. We’re encouraging them to consider zoning to allow people to add some housing to existing properties. You already have driveways and septic. The infrastructure is there, so let’s use it. Let’s not only be building new houses in the forest.”
“The third category is we’d like a zoning class for affordable housing so that it is easier to rezone for affordable housing. Two or three naysayers can really kill a rezoning, and so we’d like a zoning class that allows for affordable housing. If it’s for the housing society, it gets special treatment, basically. I think it would be much better for our community if we could add more density to community owned properties.”
“Number four, we’d like to stop home conversions to hotels, so we really, really think it’s important to regulate short term rentals. A lot of people are buying houses here and converting them to hotels.. They don’t have big fancy signs that say hotel, but they are basically three or four suites being used that way. We want to stop that by regulating short term rentals and then we want to do ‘cluster housing.’ You put two or three houses together, they share resources, and then the rest of the land can be preserved for wildlife, forestry and whatnot. So that’s really thinking about ecological development, low carbon building, many of those things I think are really, really important and should be built into the zoning code.’
‘We’ve got a letter in the back and if you haven’t signed it, consider signing it or sending an email to planning@srd.ca. It’s really important that the SRD doesn’t only hear from the people that don’t want density. They need to hear loud and clear that there’s a lot of people here that want these kinds of changes. I really encourage you to jump in and talk about that with them.”
Top image credit: people arriving at the meeting – Max Thaysen photo; Most photos on this paf=ge were taken from the event slideshow
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