Community Futures North Okanagan's house for family medicine practitioners on 25th Street. (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

By Liam Verster

City council

UPDATE: Vernon Council agrees to deal for family doctors housing

Mar 25, 2024 | 5:00 AM

UPDATE March 26:

An agreement has been made for a project to provide family medicine practitioners doing their residency in Vernon with affordable housing.

At the regular meeting Monday, March 25, City Council was presented with an agreement to waive the Development Cost Charges of $32,822 for the six-unit housing project overseen by Community Futures North Okanagan.

The units will be available at below-market rate, which Roy Nuriel, Vernon’s Acting General Manager of Planning, told council will hopefully allow the family doctors to get their experience in Vernon and decide to stay in the community after completing their residency.

“As we know we have a big shortage of family doctors in the community, more than 20,000 people don;t have a family doctor, and [this] is the kind of program that can support that,” Nuriel said Monday.

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One house was being renovated and two others were being built to accomodate the students completing their residency in Vernon.

The report to council stated the renovated home, contained two bedrooms on the main floor and a master suite on the top floor, would be available in June of 2024. The main floor of the two new homes, which include two master suites and shared living, kitchen, garage and laundry rooms, would also be complete at that time.

The upper floors of the new builds will be fully contained one bedroom suites. Those are expected to be available by June of 2025, though Nuriel stated the units could be ready earlier that the expected date.

Council supported the ask and voted unanimously in favour of entering into a housing agreement with Community Futures North Okanagan.

Speaking with Vernon Matters following Monday’s meeting, Mayor Victor Cumming said this is an important project

“The city has recognized that these will be lower rents forever, and these will be for students on a two year residency to become family doctors,” Cumming said

“They’ll obviously move off to other accommodation and new residents will come every single year for their two year term, so this is going to be a wonderful attractant for people saying “I want to go to Vernon but where am I going to stay?'”

He added this will take the pressure of finding a place to live in a city with a low vacancy rate off of these medical practitioners, and will also mean more residents potentially having access to health care options.

— Original Story —

A non-profit organization looking to bring health care practitioners to Vernon is seeking an agreement that would allow it to provide housing.

Community Futures North Okanagan (CFNO) launched a housing project in 2023 aimed at providing an affordable place for eight family physician medical residents to live.

CFNO is now looking to enter into an agreement with the City of Vernon for the initiative.

A report to city council stated the housing, owned and operated by CFNO, has been built on a property on 25th Street, and the non-profit is seeking a deal that would allow the units to be rented at below-market rate and deem them as “low income housing,” allowing for the project’s development cost charges (DCCs) to be waived.

The report noted the city and the Regional District of North Okanagan DCCs total $40,336, with $33,822 of that being municipal DCCs for servicing and parks, and the remainder being regional DCCs for water, parks and natural spaces.

CFNO defends having the DCCs waived, saying the project would bring medical practitioners to the North Okanagan, who are much needed as there are approximately 25,000 people who don’t have a family doctor, and there are gaps in local services with no walk-in clinics available in Vernon.

Vernon city council will receive the report for discussion at its regular meeting Monday, March 25.

It was recommended that council support entering into the housing agreement with CFNO, authorize the expenditure of up to $32,822 to cover the DCCs for the project, and then forward the report to the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee for information