By Cheryl Jahn

Densification the future of developments

Mar 12, 2025 | 2:40 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Housing and available affordable housing has been the focus of much government attention for years. Prince George is no exception.

“Our Housing Needs Assessment shows that we need at least 5000 additional units here in Prince George,” explains Councillor Tim Bennett. “We also look at most recently when the government introduced short-term rental legislation, the ability for you to opt-out as if your vacancy rate was greater than three per cent. For the last two years, we’ve seen the vacancy rate under three per cent. Therefore, we weren’t able to opt-out.”

And that means Prince George has joined roughly a dozen BC communities to be subject to housing expectations; targets the Province expects a municipality to achieve. Three applications were before Council, looking at densification.

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“Bill 44 allows essentially up to six units on a single-family lot. Therefore, we can’t necessarily restrict that there can’t be a basement suite in duplexes. So there are a series of these 219 covenants that I think are going to continue to come in front of Council as developers continue to align with the new legislation.”

However, with growth comes challenges. Prince George is home to more 1,500 kilometres of roads, 4,700 street lights. Prince George is different from most peer communities in sheer geographic size.

“As we look to see what happens with Bill 44, I think we’re going to see more and more, more and more dense neighbourhoods,” says Bennett. “And I think that also is going to come at a shock to the community because, for many years, we’ve all been very fortunate to have a significant amount of space.”

And, as Bennett pointed out during the meeting, the more houses, the more families and the greater need for amenities, like schools.

“We know there’s not necessarily always a direct correlation between new neighbourhoods and enrollment in those schools, especially depending on what type of enrollment and what type of buildings are going in that development. While this piece of land off Foothills Boulevard was just one of three applications for greater density to come to Council, it’s fully-expected there will be more in the wings.