Thursday, March 16, 2023

Housing Summit program coming together for April gathering of municipal/provincial officials in Vancouver

Municipal and Provincial politicians, senior staff members, along with a range of other stakeholders will be gathering at the Sheraton Wall centre in Vancouver April 4th and 5th to explore housing issues in British Columbia. 

The two days of presentations, speeches and workshops are designed to share information and  help to develop a vision on how to address Housing challenges in both urban and rural communities.

The plans for the initiative were first released in mid January, with the UBCM taking the lead for the two days of discussion.

The event which is hosted by the UBCM, has very much the look of the annual convention each September which brings Municipal and Provincial politicians and staffers together to explore civic issues.

The mission statement provided the challenge ahead UBCM Housing Summit: Housing BC together 

The focus for the event that of bringing together innovators from local government, industry, the not-for-profit and Indigenous housing sectors to identify solutions for improving housing affordability and attainability across our province.  

The program resembles the format of a UBCM convention with day one hosting a panel discussion among a number of Mayors on how to Accommodate Rapid Growth.



Among some of the other themes include such areas as:

Indigenous Housing Partnerships and Opportunities, Labour Shortages and Supply Chain Disruptions, Densification and Upzoning, Tackling Homelessness, Expediting Development Approvals.

One Session of note for Northwest officials in attendance will be the Breakout Session on Rural and Northern Challenges on the morning of Wednesday April 5th.


That session is followed by one related to Housing and Local Government finance.


The full program for the April 4/5 event can he reviewed here.

Considering the focus that City Council has put on housing in recent months, it would seem likely that there will be some form of Prince Rupert representation at the Housing Summit.

Though, so far City of Prince Rupert officials have not indicated how large a contingent may be heading south to Vancouver for the two day session.

Last week we noted of some discussion from the March 6th Council Session following a Regional District hosted Housing forum/workshop earlier this month.

And while the Council members shared a few glimpses into that forum they didn't dig too deep into the details and so far there has been no follow up to expand on those themes discussed at the day long engagement of March 3rd.

Hopefully, we hear more about those initiatives as well as what may come from the provincial session in early April as part of a future Council presentation opportunity.

Past council themes are available for review as part of our Council Discussion feature.

More notes on Housing in Prince Rupert can be explored through our archive page.


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