CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. - Charlottetown’s rental housing shortage has emerged as a top issue in the city’s mayoral race.
The city’s low rental vacancy and steadily increasing rental rates prompted the city to put in place an affordable housing incentive program earlier this fall. The plan will offer tax breaks for developers for building low-rent housing.
In this year’s mayoral election, the solutions offered by Charlottetown’s mayoral candidates perhaps bear more similarities than differences. However, while most of the city’s mayoral candidates support many of the same overall solutions, each has offered substantial differences in their housing platforms.
The Guardian reached out to the candidates to hear their plans to address the city’s housing shortage.
Cecil Villard
Affordable housing could be integrated into market rate rental properties rather than separated into “group housing”, says Villard.
"That way, you know, it will just become a regular part of the community.”
If elected, Villard said he would bring together developers and construction industry partners to determine the best approach to the housing issue. He said he would encourage municipal tax breaks for affordable construction. But, he said a shortage of construction companies was one of the biggest impediments to new rental construction.
He also suggested the city become involved in tenancy issues. He pointed to stories he has heard of new building owners who, after having bought rental properties, raised rents on tenants by as much as 30-40 per cent. Villard suggested the city play an advocacy role with IRAC with regard to similar tenancy issues.
"It's a situation where people are taking full advantage of the fact that vacancy rate is so low, and they can get away with it," he said.
Villard said he favoured regulation of short-term rentals advertised on sites such as Airbnb but was reluctant to offer specifics.
"One of the things we need to do is really get a good understanding of what the Airbnb business is in the city of Charlottetown because I've heard numbers all over the map in terms of the number of Airbnb's we have," Villard said.
"This is a conversation that the province and the city really need to have."
Kim Devine
Devine also pledged to bring together a forum of developers to find answers to the city’s housing woes. She says she will do so within 90 days of taking office.
She suggested offering property tax exemptions for developers to encourage affordable housing, a key plank of the city’s existing affordable housing plan.
But, Devine also suggested the city create a detailed inventory of underutilized land, including land owned by all levels of government.
“We need to look at the city and say, 'where can we do land assemblies?' " Devine said.
"There might be commercial land that is not being used that we can zone residential."
New affordable housing should be constructed in areas well served by transit, she said.
Devine said she was in favour of some regulation of short-term rentals, specifically aimed at discouraging year-round rental properties from being removed from the market. She was reluctant to suggest specifics but said she would bring together short-term rental operators and other stakeholders before determining the best method of regulation.
Philip Brown
Like Villard and Devine, Brown promised to bring together a task force of developers, construction industry partners and non-profit agencies.
Like Devine, he suggested examining how much government-owned or underutilized land lies within city limit and planning housing projects in these locations.
But, he also pledged to advocate for provincial and federal governments to play more of a role in affordable builds. He said several regional offices of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the federal agency that has traditionally provided financing assistance for affordable housing projects, have been closed and are now run out of the homes of employees.
"The social fabric of providing public housing from the federal government has deteriorated to a point where it's now being run out of the homes of bureaucrats," Brown said.
raised co-operative housing, housing owned and operated by tenants, as a possible model for best practices. He suggested the city work closer with housing co-ops in Charlottetown, whose rates of rent are often geared to income.
As mayor, Brown would impose a commercial rate of taxation on short-term rental properties, as well as a room levy, similar to rates already imposed on hotel rooms in the city. Brown said these levies could then be used to finance affordable housing projects.
Jamie Larkin
Larkin pledged to establish a public land trust that would buy up existing affordable rental properties. This trust, operated with the province, would then ensure the housing maintained at an affordable rental rate.
Larkin did not offer specifics of how purchases would be financed or where the funds would come from to purchase these units. He said the establishment of a city-owned wind energy utility, also a part of his full platform, could generate revenue to be used for these purchases. He suggested some of this could be financed through federal dollars.
Larkin also pledged to identify publicly-owned land and partner with developers to build rental developments.
"We would partner with the developers and say 'listen, here's what we'd like to see.' You come up with your best proposal, and then it's going to be decided upon by a group of community stakeholders," he said.
The community stakeholders would evaluate housing proposals based on several criteria, including protection of the environment and green spaces, Larkin said.
Like Brown, Larkin said short-term rental properties should be taxed at a commercial rate and should pay a room levy similar to that paid by area hotels.
"I think it's important that we go back to what Airbnb was originally intended for – for owner-occupied homes where if you had an extra room or wanted to rent your couch," he said.
The Guardian reached out to candidate William McFadden, but he declined to comment for this story.
Charlottetown housing in a nutshell
Vacancy rate: 0.9%
Average rent 1-bdrm: $733 (2017)
Average rent 2-bdrm: $901 (2017)
Total rental units: 5,138 (2017)
Total units on Airbnb: 525 (August 2018)
