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Prince Rupert housing inventory complete

Prince Rupert is getting an idea of how much and what kind of housing is currently in the community in anticipation of a population boom.

The City of Prince Rupert is getting an idea of how much and what kind of housing is currently in the community in anticipation of a population boom.

A priority of Prince Rupertcity council is to get the community ready for major projects being proposed and an important aspect of the preparation is to gather baseline information on what is currently in Prince Rupert.

The first piece was doing an inventory to get a complete understanding of the city's current housing situation, with a team consisting of staff members from the City of Prince Rupert and consulting firm Urban Systems and Pacific NorthWest LNG participating in the task.

"The housing inventory baseline will give us a better understanding of where we are and solid footing to work on public policies to preserve and improve what we have at the other end of the boom," said Prince Rupert city planner Zeno Krekic who, along with Urban Systems' Mercedes Braun, made a presentation to council to share some of their findings.

Over six-and-a-half days, information on 5,104 Prince Rupert dwellings was collected by Prince Rupert building inspector Al Scott and Urban Systems student Robin Lattirmer, who physically went out into the community to look at homes while staff helped by providing internal information.

The address of each dwelling was collected, along with the type, whether it was vacant, its age range, number of units, condition, and if there were secondary suites or decommissioned secondary suites.

The survey showed that 3,736 of the 5,104 dwellings in Prince Rupert are single detached houses, followed by row houses at 361, and then semi-detached/duplex homes at 273.

The type of dwelling with the lowest number in the community are apartment buildings with more than five storeys, with only two currently in the community.

Of the residences surveyed there were mainly well-maintained homes, followed by houses in poor maintenance with minor improvements required.

There are approximately 117 vacant dwellings currently in the community, but there is some room to grow. The survey concluded there are about 524 vacant lots in Prince Rupert, however Krekic said about 100 of these are not legal lots that can be accessed and serviced immediately.

Krekic noted that some of the numbers were still preliminary, with the final housing inventory report being completed at the end of July and presented to council. The next task of the baseline information to be collected will be Prince Rupert's land base inventory.