BACK TO SCHOOL Student Housing in a Post-COVID World By Erin Ruddy FALL IS HERE and university towns are about to get busy. This is great news for local business owners who’ve been fighting to stay afloat through the pandemic, but for residents wary of COVID-carrying newcomers, it’s nothing to rejoice about. Nor is it for the hapless students who arrived to a barrage of “No Vacancy” signs. “This is a real issue,” says David Hutniak, Chief Executive Officer of LandlordBC. “Finding suitable offcampus housing has been a serious struggle this year for post-secondary students, particularly in Victoria. In Vancouver, we’re not hearing about the same level of challenges as what we’re seeing in Victoria, but there is still a real need for more rental housing.” Adding to the list of issues, University of Victoria’s longstanding practice of 16 September 2021 | Canadian Property Management
guaranteeing on-campus housing to firstyear students had to be put on hold due to uncertain provincial guidelines when the application process first opened. “Then there was the unexpected growth in UVIC’s student population, which now sits at roughly 20,000,” Hutniak recounts. “With close to 80% of that number coming from outside Victoria — a city that’s had persistently low vacancy rates for many years prior to the pandemic — there’s simply not enough off-campus housing to fill the need.” Hindered by nimbyism, municipal inertia, and what Hutniak refers to as “a City Council that does not appreciate the significant costs and risks that go with building and operating rental housing,” rental developers and lenders have been hesitant to commit to future purpose-built rental developments. There are also
pressures in the secondary market (i.e., basements suites and single-family homes), which represents a large proportion of the rental universe. “We’ve seen shrinkage in that market as many homeowners with secondary suites or revenue properties have increasingly chosen to capitalize on the ridiculously hot sales market and sell,” he says. “Combine that with what appears to be an unfolding phenomenon that the new buyers of these homes are not interested in being landlords and there’s less of this rental than there used to be.” Meanwhile, COVID posed additional challenges for landlords, who were suddenly faced with an eviction moratorium, rent increase freeze and constantly changing health and safety guidelines. When balanced against increasing costs, including taxes,
