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Cranbrook, BC (July 29, 2024) – The Mayor’s Task Force on Housing, along with City of Cranbrook Administration have been given the green light to look at implementing the City’s new Housing Strategy, after being received by Council at their regular meeting Monday night.

The Housing Strategy is the culmination of nearly 6 months of hard work by the Mayor’s Task Force On Housing, in partnership with CitySpaces Consulting, which outlines several important action items to help guide and address the City's housing needs by informing future bylaws, policies, and implementation of actions, which is to be undertaken by the Task Force.

The purpose of the Task Force was to bring a small group of experts together in each field, develop achievable goals and recommendations to act on and to bring to Council for City consideration. The Task Force was comprised of housing providers and experts with representation from not-for-profit housing sector, First Nations, BC Housing, City of Cranbrook staff and Council, the real estate sector, and members of the public.

The Housing Strategy recommendations and actions are based around four strategic directions identified by the Task Force:

•    Providing leadership and collaboration between players
•    Local government support to create affordable housing
•    Building awareness, community acceptance and a deeper understanding of needs
•    Creating a long-term, sustainable housing system

“No one entity will solve the housing crisis we are experiencing, and it will take a coordinated effort by all levels of government, the not-for-profit sector and the development community,” says Mayor Wayne Price. “The first action being taken is the continuation of the Housing Task Force to keep positive momentum moving in the right direction, as we all work together to try and find solutions to our local housing issues.”

“There are four implementation timelines including immediate and low-hanging fruit, short-term and high priority, medium-term and long-term priority and finally lower priority,” says Rob Veg, Manager of Planning for the City of Cranbrook. “While some actions have budgetary or funding resourcing attached to them, Council will be involved in those discussions through the budget process. With the housing landscape ever-changing, we expect there will be funding opportunities available through provincial or federal grants to support some strategy actions, which we will actively go after.”

You can review the Cranbrook Housing Strategy here.