A push by Powell River Mayor Ron Woznow to find developers for city-owned land has been pushed to the committee level.
Woznow wanted city staff to find development partners for some of the 150 properties plus the cleared land next to the airport.
The mayor presented the new business motion during a council meeting on Dec. 7. A city housing needs analysis shows Powell River needs nearly 600 affordable housing units in the next two years.
Woznow says the question is whether council wants to be here years from now with nothing accomplished on affordable housing and taxes.
“Do we want to sit here in three years and notice that we’ve created 300 new housing options for people and we have lowered the tax rate by 20 per cent,” Woznow said.
The mayor says it’s no secret Powell River has the highest tax rate in British Columbia while having the largest amount of municipally-owned land per capita.
But a motion by Coun. George Doubt to send the matter to the committee for city-owned properties narrowly passed 4-3.
Couns. Earl Almeida, Rob Southcott, Jim Palm and Cindy Elliott voted to send it to the committee. The vote had to be taken twice because Almeida, attending the meeting virtually, held up the wrong voting card and the motion was originally defeated.
Coun. Cindy Elliott says the committee with a cross-section of the community should handle this issue.
“I’m not in favour of using city lands for single family developments. I think we can use private lands for that in the market where it’s at. We also need a process that includes community members having a say in what happens with our community lands,” Elliott said.
The city-owned lands committee hasn’t met since June since it sent recommendations to the B.C. government for eight parcels of land for possible housing development.
