St. Albert city council should entrench its commitment to affordable housing in policy, as well as help co-ordinate the efforts of different agencies and provide financial support or incentives if it wants to attract more workers and residents, according to a new report.
Council received the Affordable Housing Delivery Model approach as information on Monday after a presentation from affordable housing liaison Lory Scott. The report recommends how the city should support affordable housing proliferation in St. Albert, given the increased downloading of such responsibilities to municipal governments and the increased demand for such housing.
“Among the factors influencing need are the ongoing demand and shortage of affordable housing,” Scott said. “It will remain the city’s role to close the gaps and develop solutions.”
The report contains seven strategies recommended by administration to council, with the caveats that the city will need to provide some funding or financial incentive to encourage construction, and that no one strategy in isolation will increase the affordable housing market pool in St. Albert — they need to be considered as a whole.
“The responsibility of developing a comprehensive plan remains with the city,” Scott said. “Money and human resources are needed.”
The issue of providing housing is especially important if the city reaps success from council’s push towards expanded economic development. Companies will have employees who require housing in all market ranges.
“It’s very clear as to where the city needs to go,” Coun. Cathy Heron said. “We need to have a good idea of the number of doors we need to open up to attract workers to the city.”
The seven strategies include creating an affordable housing policy, ranking housing priorities, establishing targets and objectives, monitoring housing needs, supporting regional initiatives, co-ordinating the efforts of housing providers and providing funding and incentives towards housing initiatives.
Mayor Nolan Crouse saw implementing a policy as important, considering council has had no encompassing approach towards encouraging affordable housing developments.
“We’ve worked on a lot of ad hoc items, all of them important, but under no real policy,” Crouse said.
Financial assistance will also be important as funding models from the provincial and federal governments change. While the province did pay out large amounts for affordable housing to all municipalities between 2007 and 2010, it has since resorted to a request-for-proposal grant program that favours smaller projects so the province can pass more money around. Scott also noted the city has been successful in leveraging investments for additional resources.
The city has also reviewed other policies that impact housing, such as its infill guidelines, but Curtis Cundy, director of planning and development, explained those guidelines aren’t specific to affordable housing.
“They take into consideration architecture and size so new development is not out of line with a neighbourhood’s character,” Cundy said. “They are not specifically around encouraging affordable housing.”
Administration will bring its recommendations based on the report back to council in late May.
