The north building of the Brock Commons Phase 2 expansion will open this July.
Located near Peter A. Allard School of Law, it will add 318 new residence beds – 64 studio units and 64 four bedroom apartments – for upper-year students. The entire expansion is set to be completed in early 2024 when the south building opens.
In total, the development will increase the number of beds by 600.
In an interview with The Ubyssey, Associate VP of UBC Student Housing and Community Services (SHCS) Andrew Parr said the expansion also includes a new commonsblock, with a front desk and all the amenities that are typical for the commonsblock.
Previously, Brock Commons Tallwood house residents did not not have a building commonsblock, and residents had to use either the Exchange or Walter Gage commonsblock to collect parcels, get in touch with receptionists and use recreational spaces.
However, Parr said there continues to be a mismatch between housing demand and available supply.
“Unfortunately, the demand for housing is so significant. The number of students that would like to live on campus and receive an offer around this time of year is astronomical. About last year, there were about 8000 students on the waitlist at this time,” said Parr. “It helps to reduce the waitlist this year, because of it's about 300 beds that we're opening, [but] it's a relatively small impact.”
Parr added students have already being assigned to the new building.
Brock Commons Phase 2 is one of the various steps in the Housing Action Plan which also includes changes to staff housing and ownership policies, rent-to-income programs and details on rent increases.
The HAP aims to “developing a long-term rental rate strategy that balances student affordability with generating revenue that supports greater investment in new student housing.”
The south building will include mixed-use spaces and bring to life the goals detailed in the HAP and Campus Vision 2050.
Affordability was recently a topic of concern for students as rents for 2023/24 year rose 3.5 to 8 per cent, higher than the 2 per cent maximum set on other rental housing in BC by the Residential Tenancy Act.
Parr said finding the balance between affordability, demand and creating future housing capital investment remains a “tricky proposition.”
“We’re seeing a huge escalation in the cost of housing and construction, and we have to consider that. We’re looking at a variety of ways of doing that. We’re doing some modelling that includes traditional [means] by which we’ve been borrowing to build student housing, and other options [like] working with the government, who released significant dollars to support student housing across the province.”
Parr said SHCS aims for student housing rents “to be below market rent to the best [UBC] can” and values its student residents as partners in the process.
“The sole purpose of [SHCS] is to deliver service to the campus community – to make the experience on campus better for everybody,” said Parr.