Kamloops may be 'in trouble' if property owners won't develop swaths of land
City planners have projected growth in the outer limits of Kamloops, but they're not sure if property owners will ever play ball with developers.
As neighbourhoods expand, particularly in suburban neighbourhoods like Pineview and Aberdeen, residential development is encroaching on agricultural land.
"If we don't have owners keen to move forward up there, we have to look at that," development, engineering and sustainability director for the City, Marvin Kwiatkowski, said at a March 8 council meeting.
He noted there are "very few" landowners with large swaths of land in the southern reaches of the city, and if they're not interested in developing their properties for residential use, housing expansion in Kamloops may be "in trouble."
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"My concern is we show those areas in the (Official Community Plan) for growth, and if those owners aren't interested, we're going to have a problem," Kwiatkowski said, adding that owners disinterested in developing their properties could cut down available land for new builds in Kamloops by half.
Those suburban neighbourhoods are typically zoned for single-family homes or low-density multi-family units.
While more densely populated developments have been approved in Kamloops in recent years, residential building permits for single-family homes were the among most sought after through 2021. Last year, 104 single family homes were approved for building permits, while 234 individual multi family units were approved in three different categories, according to a report Kwiatkowski presented to the city. This compares to 90 single-family home permits in 2020 and a total of 918 total units when including multi-family developments.
The Official Community Plan for the city, finalized in 2018, identifies southwest neighbourhoods like Aberdeen and Pineview to take the brunt of the city's growth. Those neighbourhoods are expected to take up 43% of population growth until 2039, with 1,800 single family homes planned for Aberdeen alone.
Kwiatkowski explained that city planners were looking at where the market was moving while developing the Official Community Plan. They were not, however, looking at which property owners would be interested in developing land that is currently for agricultural use.
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"We're surrounded by a lot of (Agriculture Land Reserve) land that's close to main amenities and not best the agricultural land to begin with," Coun. Mike O'Reilly noted at the council meeting.
If city planners need to have properties removed from the Agricultural Land Reserve in order to stimulate development in those areas, Kwiatkowski said the City may have to make changes to the Official Community Plan first.
The Official Community Plan also projected a population growth of roughly 1.25% through to 2039, which would bring Kamloops to a total of 120,000 people. Recent growth in the city may surpass those predictions now that Kamloops is among the fastest growing cities in the country.
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While the City has planned for suburban neighbourhoods in the southwest areas of Kamloops to take a large chunk of future growth, more dense residential projects are moving ahead still. City Gardens, for example, is slated to bring hundreds of residential units to the downtown core.
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