Vancouver city council could look to religious groups for affordable housing

More housing, less churches in Vancouver An ABC City councillor is calling for more support for religious groups in redeveloping churches into housing.

A motion coming to council Wednesday will ask staff to look at how faith-based groups could play a bigger role in increasing affordable housing stock in Vancouver.

Many religious groups own substantial amounts of land in the city, according to ABC Voun. Rebecca Bligh who will be putting the motion forward.

"What's unique about faith-Based groups is that they have land holdings, very valuable land holdings, but also a mandate by their congregations to do social good,” Bligh said in an interview with CTV News.

The motion highlights that many of these properties are aging quickly but that faith-based groups lack staff with the knowledge required to initiate major redevelopments.

"These faith-based groups are often sitting on land that is actually tax free, so church land that does not pay property tax," Bligh said, adding that "generally" these properties don’t have mortgages.

But faith-based groups also own properties that include soup kitchens and community spaces, in addition to houses of worship.

"Those types of properties that we own, they tend to be low rise, maybe one to three storeys – top," said Matthew Furtado, the director of communications of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver.

"So in specific areas, especially ones that are very close to transit, there's space to go vertical in those situations,”

Redevelopment is something that’s already being done First United Church on East Hastings Street.

"We tore down our church and we're redeveloping our space into 11 stories, seven floors of Indigenous social housing and four floors of social services in the community, for the community,” said executive director Amanada Burrows.

She says she supports Bligh’s motion “in principle”, as long as it includes one major piece.

"Any conversation about land, certainly land use by the church and the redevelopment of it, must have Indigenous voices at the table,” she said.

Vancouver is the most expensive city in Canada for renters, and has the lowest vacancy rate.