HOUSING MATTERS! The James Bay Housing Report – Spring 2017 Highlights of the housing crisis in Victoria and its impact on the residents of James Bay, in terms of affordability, availability, income inequality and quality of life. 2017 Housing Advocate James Bay New Horizons Society 3/23/2017
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HOUSING MATTERS! The James Bay Housing Report – Spring 2017 Highlights of the housing crisis in Victoria and its impact on the residents of James Bay, in terms of affordability, availability, income inequality and quality of life.
2017
Housing Advocate James Bay New Horizons Society
3/23/2017
2 The James Bay Housing Report – Spring 2017
This document has been prepared by Victoria Adams, Housing Advocate, James Bay
New Horizons Society, Victoria, B.C. e: [email protected]– March 23, 2017.
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HOUSING MATTERS! The James Bay Housing Report – Spring 2017
1. Introduction
This report focuses on making accessible, improved data on housing and ownership trends and
socio-economic information about households in the James Bay neighbourhood.
A vital part of the local area planning process, is to clarify the place and role of our
neighbourhood in contributing to a sustainable vision of B.C.’s capital City in the 21st century.
For this reason, it raises an important question: “What can people do about a growing trend of
real estate speculation, densification and gentrification, affluent newcomers and tourists
displacing long-term residents that is fuelling a crisis of unaffordable, unavailable housing and
creating a widespread insecurity of belonging?
2. The Context: Victoria’s Housing Characteristics
“Victoria is the least affordable smaller housing market in Canada” (Times Colonist, January
24, 2017.) The 2017 Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey may have ranked
Vancouver the third most expensive housing market in the world after Hong Kong and Sydney,
Australia, but Victoria now ranks 381 out of 406 as one of the most costly cities to find a home.
There is now an 8.1 ratio between Victoria’s median income of $67,300 and what is required to
buy a house with a median cost of $542,400. Demographia defines housing markets as
affordable when the median price is less than three times the median household income.
Rapidly escalating house prices are related to Victoria’s desirable climate and location, i.e.
containment by water, surrounding municipalities, mountains and built environment which can
only grow through densification and towering vertical villages.
The 2016 Census reported that the City has experienced over the past five years a 7.2 percent
increase in its population to 85,792. B.C.’s capital is now home to 49,212 private dwellings, an
increase of 6,252 from 2011 to 2016. Victoria is the seventh most densely populated city in
Canada with 4,405.8 residents per square kilometer.
The Statistics Canada 2011 National Household Survey revealed differences in the pattern of
housing tenure between the Capital Regional District (where 66 percent of its total number of
private dwellings were owner occupied), versus only 41 percent for the City of Victoria. Five
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years ago, the City had the highest proportion of renter-occupied dwellings – 59 percent, within
the entire region. Today, the City estimates that approximately 27,000 private dwelling units
are rentals (or 53 percent of the total housing stock in Victoria).
In addition to successive decades of inadequate investment in rental housing, increased
demolition of older apartments, and vacancy rates near zero, tenants over the past five years
have also experienced a minimum 18 percent increase shelter costs even under rent controls.
Their rent increases exceeded the B.C. weekly wage increases of 11.8 percent from 2011 to
2016; while many on fixed-incomes could not keep up to the soaring shelter costs.
Tenants have also been negatively impacted by the growing commodification of housing and
speculative real estate investment fuelling B.C.’s economy. The province is now dependent on
property tax revenue accounting for more than 40 percent of B.C.’s GDP which came from the
real estate sector in 2015 and 2016, dwarfing the 7 percent revenue generated by the resource
sector. The amount of foreign investment in BC real estate purchases in 2015 was equivalent to
the value of the entire residential construction industry in Vancouver according to Bill Tieleman
(billtieleman.blogspot.ca, July 12, 2016).
BC has more than 2 million properties on the assessment rolls worth $1.67 trillion, of which
360,000 properties are on Vancouver Island valued at $193.2 billion up $20 billion over last
year. Three billion dollars of the region’s updated assessments are due to new construction.
(Home values take a big jump in the capital region, Times Colonist, January 3, 2017).
According to the 2016 Census, there were now more than 3,450 unoccupied private dwellings
in the City of Victoria, which represents 7.9 percent of all dwellings. These units may have
been identified during the Census as “unoccupied” or “not occupied by usual residents,” but
the data do not reveal how many units were vacant (awaiting sale or purposely left empty as a
real estate investment), derelict (unoccupied due to the condition of premises), or ‘under-
utilized’ (perhaps furnished and operating as seasonal or short-term rental properties).
The 2016 Census tracts for one downtown area revealed 953 unoccupied units or
approximately 14.6 percent of the neighbourhood’s total housing stock. Since this area is now
the focus for more than 40 multi-storey condo properties, it is likely that many of these units
are now being purchased by both individuals and corporate interests as part of their residential
investment portfolio or income-generating properties.
This is best reflected in the recent inaugural Real Estate Investment Expo held in Victoria to
promote the City and its residential development projects as a “lifestyle superpower” for
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affluent retirees, well-paid high-tech industry contractors or tourists wanting ‘authentic’ local
experiences in “alternative hotel accommodations” afforded by the City’s many desirable and
walkable neighbourhoods.
Here’s the question: Are City politicians, planners, and developers building a mecca of
expensive amenities, attractions, and high-end housing for the well-to-do and tourists while
displacing the majority of Victoria’s full-time, long-term, modest to middle-income residents,
particularly renters?
While some 240 properties in the City have been assessed at more than $1.7 million dollars,
Victoria now ranks the third highest in terms of apartment rents in the country. The Statistics
Canada National Housing Survey has revealed that more than 6,000 tenant households spent
in excess of 50 percent of their monthly income on shelter costs, while more than 1,500
individuals have no roof over their heads. (See ‘rent poor’ map of Victoria neighbourhood
2011 census tracts: https://censusmapper.ca/maps/76#14/48.4228/-123.3644)
3. James Bay Housing Characteristics
James Bay, one of the City’s 12 neighbourhoods, has seen a 6.9% increase in its population over
the past five years to 11,988. Not only is it one of the most densely populated areas (6,116
individuals per square kilometer), it is also one of the city’s oldest neighbourhoods. James Bay is
home to the Legislative Precinct, a working harbour with heavy reliance on a seasonal cruise
ship industry, hospitality/tourism sector and diverse retail and business services.
According to Statistics Canada 2011 National Household Survey, 69 percent of private dwellings
in James Bay were renter-occupied, the third highest percentage after the neighbourhoods of
North Park and Downtown, each at more than 70 percent. (See Renter Households map of
Victoria neighbourhood 2011 Census tracts: https://censusmapper.ca/maps/60#14/48.4236/-
123.3662)
James Bay was once considered one of the City’s poorest neighbourhoods prior to its
redevelopment in the 1960s and 1970s. With the aid of Federal government housing subsidies
in the 1960s, the neighbourhood saw the demolition of older single family homes and the
construction of new multi-family high-rise apartments. From the turn of the millennium to
2011, the neighbourhood saw only modest growth (see Table 1 below).