The 1.2% vacancy rate in Kamloops has created a housing shortage for students at Thompson Rivers University (TRU).
Glenn Read, the university’s director of ancillary services, said TRU’s on-campus residences are full, and administrators are aware that some students are staying in nearby hotels. He added that the university – B.C.’s fifth largest, with an enrolment of 25,754 students – expects demand for an additional 104 beds by 2021.
“We know anecdotally that it has been a challenge for our students to find affordable student housing in proximity to the university,” Read said.
As of the fall semester of 2017, TRU had 2,839 international students, a 30% increase from fall 2016. Most of the bump comes from students from India and China. The university overall is expanding as well, with TRU adding close to 4,000 additional students since the 2012-13 school year.
Percy Amaria, general manager of the Ramada Inn, which is located within walking distance of TRU’s campus, said the hotel has three international students in separate rooms. He said they showed up just after the holiday season and checked in when they couldn’t find rental accommodations.
“They just came in the last few days,” he said. “It was something that happened at the end of the summer as well.”
TRU has two on-campus residences, one of them an 11-storey tower with 570 units. The other, McGill Housing, comprises three dorm-style buildings, built privately three decades ago and accommodating 302 students. The McGill Housing buildings were bought in 2016 by the university, which spent $1.2 million renovating them.
But demand continues to outstrip supply, at a time when Kamloops’ real estate market is heating up dramatically. The city posted 185 real estate transactions in December 2017, up 28.5% from December 2016. This marked the best December sales figure on record, breaking the previous record, which stood for 28 years. Cyndi Crossley, president of the Kamloops and District Real Estate Association, noted in a release that, “combined with inventories that are as low as they were a decade ago, prices in the region rose by more than five and a half per cent in 2017.”
The average price of a home sold in Kamloops in December 2017 was $392,498, up 6.8% year-over-year. The annual average price was $365,184, up 5.7% from 2016.
The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Kamloops in October, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., is $823, which is up from $803 as of October 2016. Prompted by such increases and the lack of available housing, the TRU Student’s Union Equity Committee recently held a panel talk with representatives from TRU and the City of Kamloops to address “the growing affordable housing crisis.” Panellist Audrey Shaw from the city’s real estate association noted, “When you look at Vancouver, a lot of people think we are very affordable compared to them. When you look at wages and the overall picture, affordable housing is still a huge struggle in Kamloops even with the prices that we have.”
Kamloops Mayor Ken Christian said in an email statement to Business in Vancouver that “amid a general affordable housing crisis students are often forgotten due to the transient nature of their tenancy.”
But developers in Kamloops are starting to take notice of the demand at TRU. The most notable construction project to be completed is Landmark Heights, a four-phase development across the street from the campus. Three phases of units have been completed, all of them sold out, according to the developer’s website.
And TRU has created a community trust and begun construction on The Reach, an on-campus neighbourhood similar to developments at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. The project will encompass 90 acres and have 3,500 residential units. The first phase of construction is expected to be completed within a few years.
“While this project is arm’s length from the university itself, it will involve the construction of more housing in close proximity, although it hasn’t been determined if any of it will be student housing.”
Arjun Singh, a City of Kamloops councillor who owns rental properties in the city, said his suites have been consistently full for the last few years.
“Let’s be honest, this is not something unique to Kamloops; it’s something that’s happening across the province.” •
