Affordable housing needs and solutions for Okotoks is coming before council in September.
A draft of the strategy proposed by the Affordable Housing Task Force was presented to Town council on Aug. 17 with a focus on data concerning needs, funds and resources necessary to address them, the possibility of partnerships and incentives for developers, and the formation of a housing authority.
Chris Boechler, chair of the Town’s task force, said the report was based on a housing needs assessment completed in 2019, followed by work with a third-party consultant to develop goals and an action plan.
“What we’re looking forward to providing for you is a housing strategy,” said Boechler. “One of the exciting things that’s evolved is the development of the wheel.”
The housing spectrum wheel identifies needs within Okotoks based on three categories – safety net, supported housing and market housing.
Safety net housing needs include emergency shelters and transitional housing, whereas supported housing is made up of subsidized and supportive living situations, and the market housing involves ownership and rental housing (both purpose-built and secondary suites).
Boechler said the wheel was born out of a realization that addressing only affordable housing was not necessarily meeting the needs of everyone in need of assistance.
“The housing wheel is a great tool because it removes the stigma of the spectrum in which people don’t slide backwards,” he said. “There should be no perception for those that get into another part of their life and fine themselves in a different housing need than they were some time previously.
“We can’t just address one part of the need, we have to address the entire need.”
To achieve these goals, the task force laid out six strategic recommendations: data readiness, resourcing the strategy, partnering with non-profit operators and the private sector, providing incentives for developers and builders, changes to land-use regulations and the creation of a housing authority.
Resourcing would involve staffing, funding, providing land assets and the ability to take on gifts from willing donors, said Boechler, with the goal of making the Town a hub for the housing wheel by forming partnerships and incentivizing developers and builders to create affordable housing options.
The creation of a housing authority would be a big undertaking, but one he said is necessary and currently a missing spoke on Okotoks’ housing wheel.
“It just feels like it’s the piece that’s missing,” said Boechler. “We would have a hub that would be missing a spoke if we weren’t finding a way to meet the needs of all people.”
He said the housing authority can help achieve affordable housing needs in any segment of the housing wheel by guiding partnerships and potentially receiving grant funding from the government.
“It’s seen as a way for the municipality to have an involvement but really an arms’-length one, to allow a group like that to continue to meet that need because it’s certainly something you wouldn’t want to manage yourself,” said Boechler.
Lisa Moffatt, of Resilience Planning, was the consultant working with the task force and said the idea of a housing authority came up early in the group’s discussions. She took that information and spoke to authorities in communities like Banff, Canmore and Innisfail.
She said according to those municipalities, the authority operates mostly in the rental housing market, working alongside the Town as its key stakeholder and applying for grants and other funding to address housing needs.
“Many of them have succeeded with lots of funding from CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation),” said Moffatt.
Coun. Tanya Thorn said she was excited to see the work done by the task force over the past two years and is looking forward to the full report in September, which will outline potential changes required on land-use and removing red tape for developing diverse housing needs.
The housing wheel is a valuable tool in recognizing those needs, she said, but the conversation should also consider people moving from one stage to another based on circumstance.
“There’s very many spectrums of affordable housing and affordable changes by your current living situation,” said Thorn. “Your current family make-up, all of those things, so what’s affordable changes as your life evolves. I think that’s important to recognize.”
Krista Conrad, OkotoksToday.ca
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