Title
Renewed Call for Property Transfer Tax for Homelessness and Affordable Housing
Recommended Action
Whereas the District of Saanich introduced Resolution #B109 in 2007 for said purpose with a prescriptive remedy of 20% of the PTT to be annually directed to a pooled fund to be administered by UBCM to address homelessness and affordable housing;
Whereas the Resolution was endorsed by the Executive but not acted upon by the Provincial Government;
Whereas the incidences of homelessness throughout BC have increased exponentially in the past decade and most particularly in recent years, based on anecdotal and empirical information derived from the Regional Homelessness Count across Metro and across the province as a whole;
Whereas there is a growing financial and social burden on local governments who are not statutorily mandated to provide below-market housing and deal with homelessness issues, but are nonetheless increasingly forced to spend inordinate and extraordinary resources relative to their tax as in order to deal with the rising homeless population while concomitantly grappling with affordability issues; and
Whereas the Provincial PTT has increased by 44% between 2014/15 and 2015/16, and is forecast to increase by over 50% between 2015/16 and 2016/17;
Therefore be it resolved that the Township of Langley request all
BC Municipalities, the FCM, UBCM, and LMLGA adopt Resolutions requesting that a defined percentage of funds arising from the PTT be attributed to a specific "Affordable Housing and Homelessness" Reserve Fund in order to address these issues proportionately facing local governments throughout the province of BC.