What does it mean to be a local ? DNV council mulls the question

What does it mean to be a local? Are you a local if you live in North Shore or can you be considered a local if you live in Vancouver or even the Lower Mainland. Should you be considered a local if you work in the North Shore but can’t afford to live here.

The seemingly simple task of defining a local is one piece of the puzzle the District of North Vancouver council and staff will have to solve before developers are told they should give priority to locals for selling homes.

At a recent workshop, staff asked council that DNV work with developers on opportunities to voluntary prioritize the marketing and sale of new multi-family units to North Shore residents. The council, however, asked staff to bring more options on how council can best act on this suggestion, including how to define locals and create policy to discourage those for who are looking to invest in real estate to speculate, flip and merely make a profit.

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Besides the difficulty of defining who is local, the district can also open itself to legal challenges if it creates restrictions on home sales for this can be seen as discriminating against those who won’t qualify as local, city planner Graham Winterbottom told councillors.

“We don’t have the authority to regulate ownership and third party advice to staff is that we can potentially be liable under a complaint of discrimination under charter rights. And once the units are occupied, it’s hard to enforce any rules in the units,” he said.

Another option for the district is to adopt a more advocacy role by lobbying to the province and the federal government for better laws that protect locals from practices such as bulk buying or flipping of homes for profit, he added.

District of North Vancouver isn’t working from a blank slate when it comes to putting locals first. In fact, there is precedence for putting locals first in both District of North Vancouver and District of West Vancouver. In 2015, for example, the developer agreed to give a 90-day priority to locals who wanted to live at a senior’s development in Edgemont.

In this absence of a formal policy to define local, the developer restricted local priority to a geographical area of Edgemont and Upper Capilano and 30 per cent of sales went to locals as defined by the developer Similarly, project developer Westbank decided to give a 30-day priority to local for a 159 condo unit building in Horseshoe Bay, with condos available to those who live, work or own business in the district.

The buyers, however, had to agree that they would be the principal occupant or one of their family members would be living in the unit. Despite these precedents, some councillors seemed reluctant to create policy or even ask voluntary compliance for developers.

“I don’t know if we want to be an exclusionary society, the only thing I’d like to include is the seniors living that is the only place where I would like to see the preference. I’d like to exclude speculators and non-residents but I don’t know how you would do that because that could be someone who has lived overseas and wants to come back,” said Coun. Robin Hicks.

Councillor Matthew Bond said if the district prioritises seniors, then we exclude young families. “Even if we have the legislative authority, there is a multitude of scenarios even if we have the legislative authority on who gets what,” he said.

Mayor Richard Walton was concerned about the development community may interpret these discussions. “Market conditions can vary and right now we are a buyers’ market and a major crash can happen. We are not trying discourage development but we are trying to encourage housing for people who want to live here,” he said.

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