Chief administration officer Brent Reems noted there was no allocated funding to develop a three-to-five-year plan to increase the supply of child care spaces
Saanich council has referred the idea of developing a plan to increase the supply of child care in the municipality to a fall planning session.
Chief administration officer Brent Reems had noted there was no allocated funding to develop a three-to-five-year plan to increase the supply of child care spaces, and staff didn’t have the capacity to undertake the work at this point.
Coun. Mena Westhaver, who chaired the Arts, Culture and Community Wellbeing Advisory Committee that brought forward the idea, said the gap in child care in Saanich is growing and affects a tremendous number of people.
A 2020 report called the Child Care Inventory and Action Plan noted Saanich was short more than 2,500 child-care spaces. It identified 62 home-based operators providing 442 spaces, and commercial or centre-based operators providing 2,931 spaces, but said the need at the time was an estimated 5,915 spaces.
According to a staff report, the supply of spaces has only increased marginally since, and the cost of housing has continued to reduce the supply of licensed in-home care.
The 2020 Child Care Inventory and Action Plan said the municipality can play a role in improving the situation through zoning for child care, providing land and buildings for child care and advocating for more assistance from other levels of government.
“This is, I think, a significant need in the community,” said Coun. Zac de Vries.
This year, Saanich council took a step toward establishing more spaces by amending a bylaw to increase the number of children permitted in licensed home-based care.
The change increased to 12 the number of children allowed in home-based care, up from the current limit of five children in homes in multi-unit buildings and up to eight in single- and two-family dwellings.
The amendments also exempted home-based care centres from restrictions that prohibited operating outside, restricted the amount of floor space that could be used in the home, and did not allow hiring non-resident staff.
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