Kelowna surpassed provincial housing targets in 2024
The province has been pushing municipalities, including the City of Kelowna, to build more housing and it has done just that.
A mandate for new housing came down from the BC government in 2023, and the latest city report shows Kelowna has built more units than the province mandated.
There were 1,501 new units completed between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2024 and the provincial mandate was for 1,363. City council is going to receive the housing target report about how the city surpassed its goal by 138 units at its meeting on Monday, Feb. 10.
“We're going to be entering into an era in Kelowna in which rental housing is easier to come by and doesn't jump up in price as rapidly as it has in the past,” the city’s housing policy manager James Moore previously told iNFOnews.ca.
The city needs to stay on track in order to meet the target of 8,774 new units by the end of 2028.
Of the 1,501 new units there were 778 rental units and 814 owned units. There are 658 new rental units going for the market rate and just 120 below the market rate.
READ MORE: Only 10 per cent of Kelowna rental building permits are affordable housing
Although 120 new units below market rate might not seem like enough to help those who are struggling with rent prices, Moore said the cost of new rentals doesn’t matter as much as the fact that more rentals are coming on the market.
“In a supply constrained market, older units rent for not that much less than new units because there is so little choice. People have to pay what they have to pay, but as the vacancy rate increases and people have a bit more choice, it's more difficult for older units to charge as much, because tenants will just leave for nicer, newer units for that price,” Moore said.
There were 659 purpose built rentals and the remaining 111 units were built as secondary suites.
These new units can take some of the credit for the vacancy rate in Kelowna going from 1.3 to 3.8 per cent in 2024.
In the same six month time span there were 2,015 total units approved for development permits and 939 approved for building permits.
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