Housing Action Plan

The City of Vernon recognizes that access to housing is critical for the social and economic wellbeing of a community and on September 26, 2022 endorsed a Housing Action Plan. This plan draws on the strong foundation of research, policies and partnerships already in place in our community and region and expresses the City's commitment to short and long term actions to support housing in the years to come.

Read the Housing Action Plan

Housing definitions

Affordable Housing Advisory Committee

This committee monitors and provides Council with milestone achievements of the implementation of the City’s Attainable Housing Strategy and also provides Council with advice on affordable housing matters.

Homelessness

More Information

The City of Vernon launched the Rental Housing Incentive Grants Program to encourage the construction and operation of purpose-built rental housing. The program provides a grant equal to the City’s development cost charge levy or $4,000 per rental unit, whichever is the lesser. Multiple family developments with four or more dwelling units would be eligible for the grant program.
- Rental Housing Incentive Grants Policy
- Rental Housing Incentive Grants Application
The City of Vernon encourages a secondary suite in single detached housing as a form of affordable housing in many areas of the community. The secondary suite application and the approval process has been significantly streamlined with reduced fees.
The City of Vernon's Development Cost Charges (DCC) Bylaw contains a provision to waive City DCC's for "low income" housing projects. “Low Income Housing”, refers to property owned, developed or operated by a non-profit society, Government of Canada, Province of British Columbia or the local government as rental units for persons living in the North Okanagan, where the income of such persons falls beneath the low income cut-off amounts published by Statistics Canada from time to time, or as otherwise determined or agreed to by the local government, and where a Housing Agreement and restrictive covenant are registered on title.

Note that Regional District DCC charges are still applicable to low-income housing project.

Please see the City's Development Cost Charges (DCC) page for more information.
The Attainable Housing Strategy sets out measures that the City of Vernon and the community can pursue in an effort to increase the supply of market housing units that are attainable to households at a range of incomes, particularly those at the lower and moderate levels.
- Attainable Housing Strategy
City Council may enter into a housing agreement pursuant and/or covenant to the Local Government Act, as a condition of approval for affordable and/or special needs housing. A housing agreement can increase the maximum permitted density of units per gross area in zoning districts RM1, RM2, RH1, RH2 and RH3.

For more information on Housing Agreements, please contact the Current Planning Department at 250-550-3634.