Hamilton

Fernie is at a crossroads. If we do nothing, our children will leave because they can't afford to stay, and our seniors will be forced out of the community they built because it will be too expensive to age in place. Housing is not an abstract policy problem. It is the question of whether Fernie remains a living, breathing community or becomes a hollow, seasonal resort town with a transient workforce and no generational roots.

We need to build a greater diversity of housing, so our children can put down roots as adults, and so the rest of us can stay rooted as we age.

There have been many changes in Provincial legislation over the last 3 years to support the development of higher density housing options, limit NIMBY'ism for residential developments, and start us on the path to improving the affordability of housing in Fernie. Most notably, BC's Bill 44 now permits up to 3 or 4 units on single-family (depending on specific lot size) across the province, directly enabling the kind of incremental densification Fernie needs. As a resort community, housing will always be a premium, but through densification, and the focus on building more 3, 4, and 8-plex style condo units, we will enable individuals to get on the property ladder sooner to start building equity, and provide more opportunities for seniors to downsize once they become empty-nesters.

Whistler's community leaders recognized this same dynamic in the 1990s, when they noticed that other resort towns had few children because workers lived 45 minutes away, commuting daily to jobs they couldn't afford to live near. That is the trajectory Fernie is on if we do not act with intention. We see the same situation playing out in other resort communities across North America right now.

Through the 80s, 90's and into the 2000's, communities around Canada grew through sprawl. Expanding outward was cheaper and faster, and so that is where developers focused their efforts. But the cost of that sprawl is now catching up to us. Maintenance and replacement of linear assets, ie. water pipes, sewer lines, storm systems, and roads that were built over the last 40 years, is now required. After inflation pressures,  These costs are being borne by property tax payers today, because reserves were not built for their eventual replacement. Compounding the impacts of these costs on residential property tax rate payers is the decrease in industrial and commercial tax bases. Many of these industries have either shut down, or moved offshore to lower cost jurisdictions. This is pushing even more of the burden onto the residential tax base.

In his book, Strong Towns, Charles L. Marohn outlines how modern western development practices are the key factor to soaring property tax rates. Short-term growth "may create the illusion of wealth and prosperity, but it comes at the expense of long-term solvency, creating unpayable future liabilities." New growth adds an "asset" to the balance sheet, but the balance sheet doesn't capture the future, unfunded, liability of replacing that asset. "Growth" becomes a Ponzi-scheme where those who come next end up paying for the assets those before them first consumed. The tax revenue generated by a single family residence does not cover the long term costs to maintain and replace the assets that service it. The cost of doing nothing is not zero. It is borne quietly, and compounded, by every future generation.

By focusing on incremental densification, we begin to increase the net value per acre of our community. By increasing the net value per acre, we reduce the pressure on individual properties to pay for the assets used to service the residents, spread now over a greater number of residences. And if we further diversify our neighbourhoods, incorporating commercial units into those neighbourhoods, we further shift the burden away from individual residential owners. The Columbia Basin-Boundary region's 2025 median assessed value for single-family residences sits at $518,950, with 83% of communities in the region already above $400,000. Fernie, as a resort community, skews well above that regional median. The math of sprawl no longer works in our favour.

Rental & Ownership

Fernie has been focused heavily on building rental focused housing, and this needs to keep on pace. There is an acute need for rental properties to provide options for our service-based employees. Completions must remain the priority until these new units are occupied and stabilized. In addition to what is currently proposed, we need to look at developing more 3-4 bedroom rentals to better serve families and multi-generational households. The diversity of rental options needs to match the diversity of family situations. As these rental projects come online, we need to start looking to building units with a focus on affordable ownership. And again, the diversity of units built needs to match the diversity of needs. It can't be all 1 or 2 bedroom units. There are many proven models out there, and Fernie doesn't need to reinvent the wheel. The Whistler Housing Authority, created in 1997, now oversees price-controlled rental and ownership housing for Whistler's workforce and retirees, and has enabled roughly 80% of Whistler's workforce to live within municipal boundaries. That success has already inspired other mountain communities. Revelstoke is currently developing its own for-purchase workforce housing program, explicitly modeled on the Whistler approach. The Banff Housing Corporation offers a comparable model with resale price controls designed to prevent equity speculation and keep units in the affordable pool over the long term. These are not distant examples. They are our neighbours, and they show what is possible when a municipality commits to staying in the housing game.

One area where Fernie can improve, and create real local efficiency, is by consolidating our existing housing societies and leveraging the efficiencies of scale that consolidation enables. Fragmented administration means duplicated overhead, inconsistent policy application, and reduced capacity to manage a growing portfolio. A single, well-resourced housing body, modeled on the WHA structure, gives Fernie the institutional backbone to take on what comes next.

Getting it Built

Understanding the challenge is not enough. The Fernie Housing Needs Report identifies the need for 551 new residential units in the next 5 years, and over 1,850 over the next 20. Those numbers do not get built through good intentions. They require a municipality that is an active, willing partner to development, not a passive gatekeeper.

That means using the tools available to us. Density bonusing, where developers are offered additional height or density in exchange for including affordable or workforce-restricted units, has been used effectively in resort communities across BC. Inclusionary zoning, which requires a percentage of new units to be offered at below-market prices, is another lever. These are not radical ideas. They are standard municipal tools that Fernie has been slow to deploy.

It also means being deliberate about where we build. Incremental densification works best when it is concentrated along corridors and near services, reinforcing walkable neighbourhood centres rather than pushing growth outward. This is the Strong Towns principle in practice, and as it stands, Fernie is already generally accessible by foot or bike.

The only way to solve the housing affordability challenge in Fernie is to build more multi-family units, support the institutional capacity to manage affordable ownership over the long term, and use every municipal tool at our disposal to make it happen. The alternative is not the status quo. The alternative is a community that slowly hollows out, pricing out the teachers, nurses, tradespeople, and young families that give Fernie its character, and leaving future councils to manage an even larger unfunded liability than the one we carry today.