One of the 2025 RIEP Virtual Forum presentations was a panel discussion of how the affordable housing societies were faring on six rural islands. There were a lot of common themes running throughout their stories: difficulties obtaining funding through BC Housing, CMHC and other organizations whose requirements are drawn up for urban rather than rural areas; the cost of building on remote islands; relationships with regional districts and Islands Trust; and water issues. The moderator was Mike Hoebel from the  Galiano Affordable Living Initiative Society (GALI).

Mike Hoebel: “The lack of affordable housing is truly a crisis in our communities and housing policy was a major item for discussion back at the RIEP 2023 In-Person Forum Gabriola. Today we’re going to hear from a number of people about housing related initiatives underway in their communities.”

Salt Spring Solutions

“First we’ll be hearing from Elizabeth FitzZaland from Salt Spring Solutions, then Adam Evnick to talk about the Housing Now Program,  Bruen Black is going to share some information about the Cortes Housing Society’s Initiatives. April Lewis from the Hornby Island Housing Society, Simon Palmer from the Denman Community Housing Society, Deb Goldman from the Mayne Island Housing Society,  Avi Bryant from the Galiano Cottage Co-op and I’ll share a bit of an update about GALI’s project on Galiano. Following the panel presentations we’ll touch briefly on some advocacy issues to the province. To set the stage, I’d like to ask Elizabeth to tell us about the work being done by Salt Spring Solutions.”

Elizabeth FitzZaland: “Salt Spring Solutions started back in 2018. Recognizing that we’re really stuck on our island around certain issues that were really vital and critical and that we felt like we were being framed maybe too simplistically,  a little bit too environment versus economy, and not really looking at how there’s actually a lot of crossover and there’s actually a lot of opportunity for us to find solutions together. We’re in the southern Gulf Islands. We’re in the Capital Regional District in the Islands Trust area. We’re finding that not a lot is moving forward.”  

“In 2022 we identified altogether 40 different strategies that were under these big umbrellas. One is really about working together across these different organizations.  Second strategy is effective public communication, engagement, and dialogue. Third strategy is preservation of rural areas in natural spaces through clustered housing. Fourth strategy was readying our village center for more housing, so where we have the most servicing and critical mass.  The fifth strategy was accessory dwelling units in the right places. Unlike most of the other islands, we have very restricted accessory dwelling unit regulations on Salt Spring Island.”  

“Of those 40 strategies, we actually just did a review two years in and 11 of those strategies are either done, or underway.  We’ve really seen a lot of leadership from our largest water district, who serves a huge portion of the households here on Salt Spring. We’ve also seen a lot of leadership and progress from the Capital Regional District, both at the regional level and at the local level, which has been great.  Where we haven’t seen very much success is at the Islands Trust level. That’s not because there haven’t been attempts by our local trustees or by our local staff. I think it does point to some structural problems at the trust and actually being able to move forward the housing portfolio on Salt Spring Island.”

Housing Now

Mike Hoebel: “Thank you so much, Elizabeth.  Moving right along, Adam,  tell us about the Housing Now program?” 

Adam Evnick: “The Housing Now flagship project is the Home Share Registry, where we help facilitate home seekers and homeowners to come together. There’s a lot of available empty rooms in the Southern Gulf Islands, mainly in our senior community. One of the challenges we’ve been facing is encouraging homeowners to come into the registry program. We have a lot of home seekers, but not so many homeowners.” 

“A big issue they’ve been having is along the lines of security when bringing people into their home and then also having home seekers feel secure in that arrangement as well. We’re working to launch a new platform that allows for us to build lease agreements, to build credit with the homeowners, with the renters, to have affordable, cheap insurance for the renters, manage agreements, manage rent, do all those kind of things so people feel really secure, which would then hopefully bring in more  homeowners to the registry program.”

“We’ve made, I believe, 10 matches this year so far, so that’s good. A big part of this year is that we want to start sharing those stories to try to help move the needle of understanding of how home sharing is actually a really beneficial program  and really strengthens community resilience.”

“We’ve been hosting a lot of talks recently to get a sense of what makes a home for people and what we found is that every time we have these talks  it always  spirals into people just really wanting to feel like they’re part of the community.” 

Cortes Island Housing Society

Mike Hoebel: “Thank you so much. Well, we’re doing very well.  Moving up North, how about Cortes Island?” 

Bruen Black: “I’m the project manager for the Cortes Housing Society.  We have a main housing project that they’re working on, and we have a couple of housing tangential projects that we also have on the go.” 

“The community helped raise funds for buying land  in the heart of Manson’s Landing. We’ve had the land for seven years.  There’s been three unsuccessful applications for the BC Housing funding and now we’re  trying to pivot to a more grassroots approach and build capacity within community and use it for local training. We’re in the process of clearing the land. One of the first buildings that we’ll build there is a laundry facility, which is really much needed by the community. We’re in the process of clearing the land for Rainbow Ridge”

“We also have another piece of property, Orchard Village. We’re creating a woodmaker space, a gathering place for the island’s crafty people (we have a lot), and potentially a space to create tiny homes.” 

“Another thing that we have ongoing is  we’re investigating the health of our aquifers and critical areas to watch out for in terms of aquifer sensitivity, which is a  pretty key issue down south, as I understand.” (discussed at the bottom of this page)

Mike Hoebel: “I also just wanted to give a shout out to Cortes because you folks have hosted a  series of webinars on a whole range of housing topics.”

Hornby Island Housing Society

Mike Hoebel: Moving along, “I’d like to turn to Hornby and April.”

April Lewis: “I’m from the Hornby Island Housing Society. They’ve been in operation since the 1990s and have two projects. One is an 11 unit village for seniors who live independently. Most of them are single houses, a couple of duplexes, and many of those folks have been there for 10 or 15 years. The second project:  we did go the BC Housing route and it took a really long time. There were some community challenges around the piece of land that was donated or did an amenity trade for community housing.”  “That held us up for a while, but the project actually did get funded.  It’s under construction now, and they’re hoping for occupancy early in 2026.  I hear strongly the desire for maintaining the island values, the rural values, and that’s a real challenge when you’re using BC Housing funding because they are used to building for urban settings.” 

“Part of our challenge has been the cost of the project because we have no infrastructure here. We don’t have a sewer system. We don’t have water systems. So the civil costs are really high and that was a challenge for BC Housing  to consider funding.”

“We’ve had a lot of success with Islands Trust. They’ve been incredibly supportive, moved things along and continue to move things.  Our local Comox Valley Regional District also supported our application and that local support allowed us to engage CMHC to provide the rest of the funding that we needed for that project.” 

“One of our challenges is that we’re an aging board and there’s a lack of volunteers coming to fill the gaps as folks would like to step down. The board’s also doing some strata planning right now and looking at the possibility of moving from a working board to a governance board, but that would mean that we would have to pay money to do all the things that the volunteers have currently been doing, including maintenance of the buildings. Some of them are getting older. We’ll be looking at new roofs coming up.  Another challenge is finding the money to make the capital improvements to maintain those buildings.” 

A challenge for us too is trying to engage with the decision makers around funding for houses and rural areas, to educate them about the differences between what’s needed in the country and what’s needed in the city. We don’t really want 26 unit projects.  It will be interesting to see what happens when it comes time for people to move in because lots of folks go, ‘Oh, you know what? I’d rather have a roof over my head, even if it’s in really close quarters.’ 

Mike Hoebel: You’ve been working with M’akola , haven’t you?

April Lewis: We have worked with the M’akola Housing Society . When the opportunity came up  to have this piece of land, it was another organization’s project. BC Housing said, if we’re even to consider it, you have to go under Hornby Housing because they’ve worked for a long time in housing. The board knew that they didn’t have the capacity to handle a 26 unit project and so we’ve leased the land and the project to Nicola and they’ve done the negotiating with BC Housing and they’ve done the development and building. They’ll also operate the facility. We’ve retained some influence around choice of tenants. We’ve set a really clear criteria for ‘Hornby first’ folks.  We’re really happy with the work that Nicola has done for us. It was their expertise and experience that made that project successful.”

Mike Hoebel: “Nicola is a First Nations based group, isn’t it?”  

April Lewis: “Yes, they do a lot of work in First Nations communities.” 

Mike Hoebel: “Thanks so much, April. I’d like to turn over the mic to Simon Palmer from Denman.” 

Denman Community Housing Society

Simon Palmer: “We’ve been chasing affordable housing on Denman for the past 12 years. Three years ago, we got ownership of a downtown site, within walking distance from the ferry and spitting distance from the general store, community school, community hall, and so on.”  

“We applied in 2023 for funding from BC Housing under their community housing fund program and CMHC under their cooperative housing program.  We were unfortunately unsuccessful in both. We’re pretty sure that the reason was the premium cost of building on an Island and the size of the project itself.  I think we all know that 24-26 unit  projects,  price wise per square foot, are not as competitive as larger urban ones. We plan to apply again when the next call comes through, which we understand is going to be sometime in the first half of this year.”  

“If we are further not successful, then we have to have a total rethink of what path we’re going to take, whether it is something similar to Cortes.”

“There’s one question I would pose , we have a meeting scheduled with the housing minister towards the end of this month. One request we’re going to make is that there’d be serious consideration of a funding stream allocated to rural Island projects.  I wonder if any of the panelists, over the remaining course of this session, might think about what further constructive request we might make on behalf of the islands to the minister when we meet with him.”  

Mayne Island Housing Society

Mike Hoebel: “Thanks, Simon. Next up we have  Mayne Island.  Deb, are you there?” 

Deb Goldman: “We are building Salish Grove, which is 10 units of affordable housing on three acres of donated land. It’s beautifulyl treed land centrally located to the commercial area service and the ferry. Many of you know that the CRD built a walking/biking pathway from the ferry to our main commercial district and that runs right along the land that we’re building the housing on. So that’s very useful for us and it provides accessibility.” 

“Mayne Island has no purpose built rental housing and no seniors housing. Salish Grove will provide the only purpose built rental housing, the only seniors housing, and also workforce housing. There’s only 10 units, but I want to bring into people’s awareness that  by population 10 units on Mayne Island is the equivalent to 2,000 units of affordable housing being built in the Greater Victoria are. So it’s no small deal here for our economic sustainability and people’s housing security in our community.” 

“We’re building a mix of one, two, and three bedrooms, and these units will have the mixed rental model intended for the funders as well as  the incomes of those residents. We’re working with Wiser Projects. I would also like to mention that we keep in mind ecological sustainability. We’re currently building step code four and looking to design for net zero ready. We are remediating  land that had been damaged from successive logging operations to increase the permeability of the soil as well as we will be restoring a cedar wetland forest.” 

“All of the area that is beyond the building area will be protected from further development through our covenant with the local trust committee. We are in the process of subdividing the land for a transfer of title and that’s going to be  very important as we go forward. We did apply to BC Housing in the last go around for funding. We weren’t successful.  We will be applying again  in this next go-around, as Simon says, we expect it to be launched shortly.” 

“We’ve been very lucky in receiving a good chunk of pre-development funding this year, which is helping us move the project forward.  So we have our building designs and energy modelling on the buildings.  We’ve drilled and licensed a well for potable water. We’ve got class B estimates for the build.”

“Our challenges have been,  of course, the pre-development funding. It’s very difficult to get that and it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to even get through the rezoning process and many more hundreds to get a building permit. We have been working with BC Housing and the great Federation of Canadian Municipalities  and CMHC as well as other funders for that.”

Galiano Cottage Co-op

Mike Hoebel: “Thanks so much, Deb and I’d like to turn now to a fellow Galiano Islander.  Avi, are you there?” 

Avi Bryant: “The Galliano Cottage Co op is a very small development  in a small population center. We have land that’s  in a good central location,  close by the school.  We’re in the process of building four 2 bedroom units on that land, and they’re actually fairly close to completion. We do have the zoning to build more on that.”

“Regarding funding, I’m just echoing things that a lot of people have said. This is a small project. It doesn’t fit with BC Housing. We did apply through CMHC’s co op intake and were denied. The reason for that, I think, is a combination of the extra cost of construction here, but primarily they don’t have good data for the rental market in the Gulf Islands. So they were treating us generically as rural British Columbia.  Their beliefs about the rent that was appropriate to charge,  was more like if we were in Terrace or something like that.  It just didn’t match up.”

“We’ve been lucky enough to get some short term construction financing, but finding more funding to complete the project with more units  and take out financing going forward is the challenge.” 

“The thing that has been a great accelerator for us is that we deliberately kept the project small and kept it on land that was residentially zoned under the standard zoning  for enough units to have the project make sense to us.  So we did not have the pre development costs of rezoning. We did not have subdivision to deal with and that made a huge difference in terms of just being able to hit the ground running.”

“Obviously it’s a trade off in the sense that if we had tried to rezone to a larger project, a denser project and then funding possibilities might have been easier.” 

“Just to echo a lot of what other folks said, civil costs are huge. We’re drilling wells, we’re putting in a big water system, we’re putting in some new roads, septic systems, etc.”

“The other challenge for us that’s specific to a co op is that  the province.s rental assistance program does not apply to co ops, even to non profit co ops.  That means that a lot of people who would be members and residents are not able to afford it,  because they don’t get that assistance they would normally get from the province. That’s something that has become very clear to us as we’re  getting ready  to welcome people into these homes.” 

“The other model that we are looking at is to take advantage of extra density that exists in the zoning of the island, which is to say that many people have the right to build a cottage as well as their primary home on their land.  We are working towards agreements with landowners where effectively we as the co-op, build a cottage on their land and then get the use of it for enough time to pay back the construction costs after which time the unit belongs to the landowner. No money is changing hands, but they end up with a free dwelling some decades down the line.” 

Galiano Affordable Living Initiative Society (GALI)

Mike Hoebel: “Thanks, Avi.  I just want to stay with Galliano for another few minutes. The Galiano Affordable Living Initiative Society (GALI) was successful in rezoning a 10 acre undeveloped forested parcel located right next door to our seniors housing for a new project to develop 20 units of affordable rental housing. We partnered with New Commons Development,  a nonprofit affordable housing developer to acquire the pre development funds and engage the professionals to design the project. That was a two to three year project itself,  to develop all the plans, do the permitting, the water permits, all that sort of stuff.”

“The project is named ‘Thuthiqut Hulelum’ which means forest homes in the Hul’qumi’num language. We have, as mentioned, 20 units, including, studio, one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom units in four multi unit buildings.  The  tenants will be, we assume, singles, couples, families, and seniors. What’s maybe a bit unique in our project is after reaching the building permit stage with our planning and permitting, GALI agreed to transfer the property and the project to the Capital Regional District.  The CRD has committed $2.75 million to get started on the project construction and has been actively working to secure additional construction funding and long term financing needed for the project. Once the housing  is constructed, GALI will become the housing operator. I’m also pleased to say that tree clearing and site preparation for the project got underway just this week.”  

“As the other community housing organizations on the panel have said,  those of us undertaking this project on the islands have a particular challenge because of the realities of living on the rural islands and not least of which is the extra cost of transportation of materials and off island trades people to the islands.  Also as other presenters have mentioned, although our proposed projects may be large in the context of our small communities, the funders definitely consider us pretty small potatoes and our projects are viewed as risky because our community housing groups typically don’t have an extensive history of building and operating these kinds of projects.  There’s also  the challenge of keeping rents affordable for these smaller projects that will cover operational costs unless there is an ongoing subsidy, like for example, through BC housings, community housing fund.”  

More on Working with Regional Districts

Mike Hoebel: “For insights, I had thought just to say that our small rural Island communities are not usually top of mind for the regional districts that we belong to. However, if you’re fortunate and your regional district has recognized the critical need for housing in your island community and you have support at the political level that can open doors to funding and to regional district staff support.”

“GALI is the prime example of this, because we’ve been greatly helped by the support of our Capital Regional District, electoral area director  and by staff at the Capital Regional District. The Capital Regional District is really stepped forward to understand and address the housing needs on the rural islands in the CRD.”

“There’s a Southern Gulf Islands housing strategy that’s been developed. You can get it from the CRD website. More recently, the Capital Region Bus District is undertaking a pilot project in the Southern Gulf Islands and the Salt Spring Electoral Areas in 2025 2026 as part of an overall program to design or a project to design a rural housing program for the regional district.” 

“With regard to regional districts, I’m really pleased to say Mark Vonesch, on our forum this morning from the Strathcona Regional District, and the Capital Regional District both wrote to the Premier and the Minister of Housing calling for the creation of a rural housing funding stream and the provision of rural specific support. The Minister replied, I think just in January, this funding stream would be considered.  The Minister offered to discuss how to connect rural communities with existing policy initiatives and indicated great interest in the kinds of things, for example, what the CRD is doing with a rural housing program pilot.”

Tips for Housing Societies

Mike Hoebel: “I think that wraps our panel up. Oh, Mark has a question.” 

Mark Vonesch: “I really appreciate everyone sharing all the progress that we’re making. It’s awesome. I just want to touch on a few more things.”

“One is that every community has access to MRDT funding. This is basically a short term rental tax. It’s currently raising 50 grand a year for the Cortes Housing Society, so that’s an opportunity for everyone.  For tourist communities, opting into the primary residence requirement for Airbnbs puts downward pressure on the housing market and opens up more rentals. Changing your zoning and adding a non profit zoning category that allows your housing society to buy a piece of land and add more dwellings is a huge thing. And then,  Michael touched on it, creating a housing service at the municipal or regional district level that allows the government to access funding and also do tax requisition  for projects.

Mike Hoebel: I really urge people to get in contact with Mark and his colleague Robin Mawhinney, also from Strathcona Regional District, about their leadership in promoting affordable housing projects in their rural islands.  I also have a shout out to my own Capital Regional District Electoral Area Director, Paul Brent, who’s also been a champion for affordable housing projects in the electoral area that he represents.” 

“We have a few more minutes, over to Mitch  or whoever else is monitoring.” 

Mitch Miyagawa: “I see April’s hand up.”

April Lewis: “I’m interested in hearing how Cortes  shifted their MRDT money to housing because Hornby also is now receiving MRDT money,  but we’re not able to allocate much of it to housing.  I’m wondering if someone could speak quickly about how that was done.” 

Mark Vonesch: “MRDT is traditionally set up to provide funding for tourism advertising, basically. They’re usually three to five year agreements. Those come up for renewal, so that’s a chance for you to change that allocation and it’s really a political discussion in your community around how you want to do it. It  does take work and advocacy  to reallocate or change the allocation or have it all go to housing.” 

“You have to get 50 percent of your hotels signed on to it and it basically allows you to put a up to 3 percent tax on short term rentals. That money goes to the provincial government and then gets directly sent to your housing society or non profit that you allocate to.”

Mitch Miyagawa: “We have Sheila.” 

Sheila: “Regarding that idea of what to present to the provincial authorities.  I was at the forum where that motion was made and I really endorsed the need to move from BC Housing. Some of the funding would go directly to the islands and be more amenable to rural ways.”

Thank-you

Mitch Miyagawa: “Let’s hear from Duane.”

Duane Hansen from Cortes Island: “The one thing that I guess I should acknowledge, the Cortes Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA), requested me to sit in on this. I’m grateful to them for giving me this opportunity  to see what’s going on within our traditional territory.  I always  enjoy listening to other people’s determinations.  I sit on the board for this for CCEDA.  Also, next week we’re having an election (for Chief of the Klahoose First Nation), I’m also running for leadership,  so I’m grateful for being given the opportunity  to listen to everybody.”

Water Issues

Female moderator:  “Eli, go ahead.”  

Eli from Denman: “My question was regarding water. We’ve been talking about it a lot here on Denman. We have all the issues with aquifers and worries about water. We have  plenty of water in the winter. We just have to have storage to have it last through our summers . We’ve been trying to push for some changes to the laws about having catchment systems. At this point people have to drill for water to hit the aquifers that are already overused in many ways, when instead of spending $15,000to drill a hole you could be spending $15,000 to $30,000 to make an incredible resileint water system that will last you until the end of your days. Is there anything that other islands have been doing?”

April Lewis: “I know that right now they’re doing a suitable land analysis for Hornby and Denman. Island Stress is carrying that out and it will be looking at sensitive areas. So I think it depends on what  those reports show. It’s a real opportunity for us to request that our bylaws include water catchment for any new builds.”

Simon Palmer: “Our design on Denman includes a significant rainwater harvesting,  so we are not totally reliant on wells.”

Links of Interest:

• Articles about, or mentioning the 2025 RIEP Virtual Forum
• Articles about or mentioning RIEP
• Articles about, or mentioning, the Cortes Housing Society
• Articles about, or mentioning, housing on Cortes Island
• Articles about, or mentioning, housing on Quadra Island

Top image credit: Clearing the land for Phase one of Rainbow – submitted photo

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