To advance policies in its Regional Affordable Housing Strategy, Metro Vancouver continues to explore ways to develop affordable housing across the region. Understanding that housing and transportation costs are closely linked and represent the two highest costs for most working households, and with the goal to create more purpose-built rental housing that is affordable to low- and middle-income households, Metro Vancouver contracted a consortium team to explore transit-oriented affordable housing development across the region.
CitySpaces played a supporting role to lead consultants, ECONorthwest, towards researching the implementation potential of a transit-oriented affordable housing Fund, a financing mechanism that aids transit-oriented affordable housing development by incentivizing housing construction near high-capacity transit.
To set the local parameters for the potential transit-oriented affordable housing Fund, CitySpaces conducted research to provide a local context review that summarizes:
- Responsibilities and involvement of senior levels of government, local governments, and the private and non-profit sectors to enable affordable housing development;
- Current funding and financing mechanisms that enable affordable housing development in BC;
- Characteristics of existing funds that allow affordable housing to be developed, such as eligibility requirements (borrowers and projects), risk tolerances, typical capital stack/deal structures, available funding amounts, development stages, and typical lending terms;
- Key limitations of the housing industry, providing insight on obstacles that local affordable housing providers encounter and the typical funding gaps they face; and
- Key opportunities for the industry that may aid transit-oriented affordable housing development in the near future.
The challenges identified in this review provided a foundational understanding for how a transit-oriented affordable housing Fund may be applied to the Metro Vancouver region.
