The City of St. Albert is unsure if it will re-apply for federal grant funding aimed at spurring housing development after its 2023 application was denied with no feedback provided, and new funding conditions have been implemented.
The grant program, called the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF), was launched in March of last year with an initial budget of $4 billion. The HAF provides municipalities with grant funding to implement policy and process changes that streamline housing development by, for example, purchasing new software to speed up development permit approval processes. As part of the application process, municipalities needed to develop housing action plans and have them approved by their respective councils.
St. Albert was one of over 500 communities to apply for funding last year — at the time city administration estimated that St. Albert could receive up to $12 million — but as of this past April the city was not one of the 179 communities that had their applications approved, such as a number of Alberta municipalities like Edmonton, Calgary, Banff, Bow Valley, and others.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in April that the federal government's 2024 budget included a $400 million top-up to the HAF, specifically for municipalities like St. Albert that had applied but didn't make the cut, although the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), which administers the program, said early last week that some new conditions for funding have been put in place for the second round of applications, which are being accepted until mid-September.
These new conditions have city administration “reviewing and assessing” its options when it comes to re-applying, the city's managing director of planning and infrastructure, Adryan Slaght, said in an email.
“Administration is actively reviewing the parameters of the program to fully understand the associated requirements and potential implications for St. Albert,” Slaght said, adding that the city didn't receive any feedback as to why its initial application was denied.
“CMHC is offering webinars for municipalities to learn more about the program [and] city administration is planning to attend an upcoming webinar.”
According to the CMHC's July 8 announcement about applications being accepted again, one new condition of funding is that municipalities the same size or larger than St. Albert “are required to commit to implementing four units as-of-right bylaws as part of their action plans.”
A four units as-of-right bylaw would mean that a fourplex — a housing complex with four units on one land parcel — could be built on any piece of residentially zoned land anywhere in St. Albert, regardless of what the surrounding residential building style is, such as single-detached homes.
The same condition was also included in a different housing-related grant program announced by the federal government in April, which Alberta's Premier Danielle Smith staunchly opposed, going as far as saying she'd consider taking the federal government to court to have the condition be stricken.
For the past two years city administration has been working on a wholesale update to the city's Land Use Bylaw (LUB), which dictates things like land zoning, however, the most recent draft of the updated bylaw does not permit four units as-of-right, instead fourplexes are only permitted on corner lots with back lane access.
READ MORE: St. Albert nears final stages of land-use bylaw update
“Over the next few weeks, administration will gain clarification about the [HAF] application requirements and regulation expectations,” Slaght said. “Based upon that clarification, the city will review the draft LUB to determine if and what changes would be needed.”
“If additional changes to the regulations are required, [to allow for fourplexes, for example], standard regulation processes will occur, including an administrative evaluation, a public hearing, and a council decision.”
The updated LUB is expected to be in front of council for approval in October.
Although it's almost guaranteed to change if St. Albert was to re-apply to the HAF program, the city's nine-step housing action plan developed specifically for this program last year involves creating two new housing development incentive programs, two new city strategies for pushing infill and brownfield development, and implementing electronic permitting software to speed up process timelines.
The CMHC said in its July 8 announcement that “ambitious and innovative applications will be prioritized” for the second round of HAF grants.
“Interested applicants must update and resubmit their application, which will need to integrate best practices from the previous round into their own updated action plans to accelerate housing supply and bolster affordability,” reads CMHC's announcement.
“[The CMHC] will assess applications for funding and successful applicants will be selected by the end of 2024.”
