Finishing What One Starts
Posted by Steven Hurdle on August 6, 2008
An important update to this article is available here.
The last Langford Council meeting dealth with an interesting issue: incomplete landscaping by developers on affordable housing units by some developers.
This had previously been discussed at the Affordable Housing Committee, and it had been a racuous discussion at times. Originally City Hall staff had prepared a report recommending a $10,000 bond be posted by developers when creating an affordable housing unit, fully refundable once the landscaping was completed. Committee member and realtor Colleen Milne, however, had argued that the $10K amount was excessive and that there were already rules in place that could be used by buyers as a recourse.
City Hall staff insisted that purchasers of an affordable housing unit did not have the leverage someone paying market value did in ensuring the seller lived up to all of their obligations. A purchaser of an affordable housing residence does not have the ability to select another residence if the seller (in this case the developer) does not follow through on commitments. As a consequence of this some developers have, according to City Hall staff, done incomplete or otherwise inadequate landscaping of the affordable housing units they were required by bylaw to create, despite these same developers doing a better or more complete job of units that were slated to sell for market value.
In the end the committee recommended, and Langford Council has now endorsed, a compromise position of “a $5,000 landscaping bond for each affordable unit, to be returned in full once the City Planner and Chief Building Inspector approve its release.”
Credit to Langford staff for advocating on behalf of people in the affordable housing programme.
– Steven Hurdle -
An important update to this article is available here.
