The idyllic seaside city of Parksville has a problem—and a potential solution—about to echo around B.C. Most of the waiters, care aids, and other workers at the resorts and retirement homes can’t afford to rent or own there, according to city councillor Chris Burger. Unlike Whistler, which is designated a “resort municipality” so it can charge developers directly to create worker housing, Parksville can’t get that same designation. Too many people—largely seniors—live there. So Burger is bringing a resolution to the Union of B.C. Municipalities’ annual meeting September 22 to 26 in Penticton: change the Local Government Act (LGA), he suggests, so all municipalities in B.C. (apart from Vancouver, which is governed by the Vancouver Charter instead of the LGA) can charge developers to create worker housing.

“Like everywhere else, housing costs are going through the roof,” Burger told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview. “We’ve put in secondary suites, but apart from that, our hands are tied.”¦We’ve been abandoned by federal levels of government. We’re in a crisis. It’s a common theme at the conferences.”

Whistler was the inspiration for the resolution, Burger said. Since 1989, the municipality has been charging premiums to developers and businesses for affordable housing. Now about a third of Whistler’s work force lives in units built by the Whistler Housing Authority, both rented and owned, according to Whistler Coun. Gordon McKeever. After the Olympics, he said, the athletes village will add another 1,000 units to the stock of worker housing.

McKeever told the Straight he thinks the UBCM resolution is a great idea.

“Once you change from a resident work force to a commuter work force, you lose the heart and soul of your community,” he said. “We faced the affordability challenge in the 1990s. Now it’s spreading to Calgary, Vancouver, Kelowna, Toronto. So people are going farther and farther out, creating the need to commute. The burden is not only on the environment but also in infrastructure, You’ve got sprawl, and sprawl is really expensive.”

McKeever also chairs the Whistler Housing Authority. He said businesses and developers don’t protest the charges because there’s so much money to be made in town. Eventually, he believes, 100 percent of Whistler’s work force will be housed in development-cost-charges (DCC)–generated housing. That’s because, unlike 20 years ago, no bartender, bureaucrat, or ski-lift operator moving to Whistler today can afford to buy—or even rent—a reasonable home.

Burger is afraid the same thing is happening in Parksville. But Jeff Fisher, the deputy executive director of the Urban Development Institute Pacific Region, said he’s concerned the resolution is “unfair and illegal”. He told the Straight that UDI Pacific Region is planning to speak directly with the province about it if the resolution passes at the UBCM meeting.

“You’re raising the housing costs for one specific group, new-home buyers, including families, to subsidize the home costs of others,” he said. “One of the things we’ve said is affordable housing is a societal problem, and society as a whole should pay for its costs, not just new home buyers through a hidden cost, this DCC.”

Fisher also pointed out that several recent court cases have challenged “indirect taxation”, such as DCCs, as a means for raising municipal revenues. He said he’s not sure if it would stand a constitutionality test.

Instead of the UBCM resolution, Fisher said, municipalities should be increasing density through zoning for more units, zoning smaller lots, reducing fees and charges to developers, and reducing approval times for development applications. That’s the key, Fisher said, to creating affordable housing for workers.

But that hasn’t worked in Greater Vancouver. From 2006 to 2008, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation projects the region is building 56,205 new units of housing. During the same period, the average Multiple Listings Service price rose 22 percent, to $623,000.

Fisher explained that by saying: “It’s been an unusual market.” More supply, especially around SkyTrain stations, he noted, will reverse that.

If the resolution passes, the UBCM executive will take the idea to the provincial government.