Vernon shut out from Housing Accelerator Fund, will impact OCP

Mar 12, 2024 | 5:00 PM

The City of Vernon was rejected as a recipient of the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, which is anticipated to have trickle down effects to other plans.

In August of 2023, the city applied for a grant from the program run by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) aimed at defining housing supply targets and creating or updating a housing action plan that involves steps to meet the goals.

A staff report to council stated the city was notified on Feb. 29, 2024, that it was not selected as a grant recipient.

“According to STOREYS, an online real estate news platform, $3.552 billion of the $4 billion earmarked for the HAF program has been allocated,” the report, dated March 1, stated, adding STOREYS is an external source and its report had not been validated by CMHC.

As of March 12, the CMHC had an update list that showed 13 municipalities in B.C. were receiving funds, all through the Large/Urban Stream. Kelowna was the sole Interior community to receive HAF funding this year. The others include Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond, Squamish, Coquitlam, Abbotsford, Victoria, Campbell River, Comox, North Vancouver and Pemberton.

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At city council’s regular meeting Monday, March 11, Terry Barton, Vernon’s Director of Community Infrastructure and Development, expressed his disappointment with Vernon not receiving any funds and the impacts it will have on other planned work.

“Other than the obvious disappointment, I just want to say that while I appreciate that we may not have received the funding in full, certainly we were anticipating receiving some funding from this grant,” Barton told council.

“As a part of that anticipation, our funding source for the Official Community Plan (OCP) project that the City of Vernon has just started was going to be using that grant as its primary funding source. So the disappointment to me now is that we need a different funding source to be able to fund that project, and my team is working on some alternative solutions together with the finance department, and there will be a report coming forth at the next council agenda (March 25) on an alternative funding source in consideration of not receiving this grant.”

After learning of the impacts, Councillor Brian Quiring said Kamloops had also not received a grant but had other options to offset the loss of anticipated funds, and suggested Barton contact the nearby municipality to see what they were doing and if similar actions could be taken in Vernon.

Mayor Victor Cumming agreed the funding loss was disappointing, but added “this does push us now to be more creative” in delivering more housing opportunities in Vernon.

Council received the report for information.

by Liam Verster

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