A detailed housing needs report presented to Village of Pemberton (VOP) mayor and council on Tuesday, June 20, contained a set of figures that, while nuanced, confirm what most Spud Valley residents already know: existing housing in the community is unaffordable for many, and there’s not enough of it.
VOP staff compiled the 70-page, data-driven document between December 2022 and May 2023. The provincially mandated report comes following a 2019 amendment to B.C.’s Local Government Act, requiring all municipalities and regional districts to produce a report identifying their community’s current housing needs and anticipating what those needs could look like in the future. Each municipality must release an updated report every five years.
With its detailed analysis of Pemberton’s community demographics and housing supply, the result “is a very tightly scripted affair, of what the province wants us to include, but with the noble goal of helping us understand our housing needs and trends better,” Scott McRae, VOP manager of development services told Pemberton’s elected officials at the June 20 council meeting.
How much does it cost to live in Pemberton?
As of 2021, Pemberton counted 880 homeowners and 475 renters within its community. The proportion of renters increased from 23 per cent to 35 per cent between 2016 and 2021.
The report acknowledges the cost of owning a home in Pemberton “has escalated at an eye-watering rate.” In the last decade, the average sale price for a single-detached home has increased by 130 per cent, to $1,057,020 in 2022, or by 134 per cent for condos.
The median household income in Pemberton landed at $100,000 in 2020, according to the 2021 census. Though that was significantly higher than the provincial median, housing costs remain out of reach for many residents.
The report found median shelter costs for homeowners—or the amount of money Pemberton owners typically spent on housing every month—rose from $1,760 in 2016 to $2,100 in 2021. With “affordable housing” in B.C. usually defined as costing 30 per cent or less of a resident’s income, that technically means the average two-adult household in Pemberton could easily afford their monthly housing costs. Those median shelter costs, however, would remain outside the affordable range for the typical one-parent household or non-census families, like single-person households or share houses.
But as McRae cautioned, that figure is the middle value for all Pemberton property owners, and doesn’t distinguish between “the person who bought their house 40 years ago and has no mortgage, all the way to the person who bought yesterday who has a significant mortgage.”
So, VOP staff went above and beyond the provincial requirements, and conducted a second affordability analysis, comparing Pemberton’s median household incomes with the cost of being a new homeowner in 2022 to present a more accurate reflection of typical homeownership costs today.
That analysis found home ownership costs in 2022 are unaffordable for median earners across all household types. In Pemberton, couples without children, for example, earned a median of $125,845 in 2022, meaning they could afford to spend $3,146 or less on housing each month. The report estimated monthly housing costs for a single detached dwelling in 2022 at $5,806.
A rental affordability analysis based on approximate 2021 median incomes for Pemberton renters found affordable rent for the average one-parent household would be $973, and $718 for non-census families.
Renters, however, paid a median of about $1,560 per month to live in Pemberton in 2021, representing a 22-per-cent rise from 2016’s median shelter cost of $1,281.
Pemberton is building, but can’t build fast enough
The report paints a picture of a rapidly-growing town that saw its population rise 32 per cent in just five years, reaching 3,407 as of 2021 from 2,574 in 2016. For comparison, Pemberton’s population grew by only 382 people over the decade spanning 2006 to 2016.
The report found Pemberton’s housing stock grew at a similar rate as its population, by 43 per cent between 2006 and 2021. Most of the growth stemmed from lower-density housing options like single-detached dwellings and row houses.
The report also pinpointed the number of dwellings needed to address Pemberton’s current and anticipated housing needs within the next five years. It found Pemberton currently lacks at least 139 rental units, and anticipates needing at least 466 new ownership dwellings and 242 rental units by 2028, for a total of 847 new dwellings.
VOP staff developed three scenarios projecting how Pemberton’s population could grow. The highest growth scenario—and the most realistic, based on current trends—assumes an average annual increase of 5.8 per cent, bringing Pemberton’s population to 5,295 by 2028.
Interestingly, the report found the VOP is technically building enough housing supply to keep up with population growth. Between 2016 and 2021, Pemberton recorded an additional 390 private dwellings. “Based on this comparison, Pemberton’s current [building] trajectory is somewhere between the medium and high scenario,” the report states.
Said McRae: “If we’re already experiencing housing pressures and we’re delivering at a rate that is higher than that medium scenario, then in order to alleviate any of these practices, we probably need to be [focusing on] the high scenario.”
The municipality has “a very dynamic population,” McRae added, driven in part by its proximity to Whistler and a high volume of seasonal workers within the region. “We have about a 20-per-cent turnover rate, of residents moving either within the community or outside of the community every year,” he explained.
That’s a sign that housing types allowing for that kind of flexibility, like secondary suites, could be a good fit for the community, McRae added.
‘We do have some unique nuances here’
For Pemberton Mayor Mike Richman, there were “not a ton of surprises” in the report.
“The challenges are not unique to Pemberton,” he said, “but we do have some unique nuances here, in terms of what we need in our housing market.”
Richman described the housing needs report as “a great tool” the municipality can reference when considering current and future development applications. The VOP is currently working on a grant application for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s (CMHC) Housing Accelerator Fund. Launching this summer, the $4-billion fund aims to incentivize local governments to help boost their community’s housing supply.
“We talk a lot about stepping back and the big picture, and how we focus on ensuring that the different types of housing that are needed and identified in the report are happening in tandem and happening all over the place, so that we’re capturing all these needs,” Richman said.
“Not every development is going to have, obviously, every type of housing in it, so it’ll be really interesting to see how we use this tool to make sure that as we go through different applications and look at things broadly, that we’re really hitting our targets.”
Read the full report at pemberton.ca/public/download/files/231322.
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