After adopting an affordable housing strategy in December, Okotoks council is taking a look at how to move forward in 2021.
The strategy, which included 77 identified steps, was pared down into 11 “buckets” in order to establish a workable timeline, said Jeff Greene, director of development services.
“The timeline for this strategy is organized over the next five years,” he said.
Its fundamental elements are as follow: collecting data, establishing funding or applying for government supports, forming partnerships in the development and construction industry, identifying policies and tools required to move the strategy forward, and securing rental accommodation.
Within each category, or bucket, is a list of milestones to gauge whether goals are being met and to ensure expectations are being met, he said.
One of the first projects under the strategy will be to compile a detailed database, which will inlude the demographic profile of Okotoks residents, the nature of the housing supply in town, income levels of residents, family composition, and the number of people or families in need of affordable housing.
Some information has already been provided by Westwinds Communities, but Greene said there are other service providers in the area that could supplement that work and help develop a more in-depth database to get a strong hold on housing needs going forward.
The Town has applied for a Housing Supply Data Grant from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) that would help fund that portion of the implantation strategy, he said.
“We do have a number of gaps in our data and this is what we’re hoping to fulfil and complete, hopefully with the support of CMHC,” said Greene. “If not, we will move forward as a municipality ourselves because we need the data in order to inform our decisions around new housing types.”
Okotoks CAO Elaine Vincent said if the Town is not successful in its grant application, the project may have come back to council.
“We may need to return to council to either alter the timelines or provide additional funding,” said Vincent.
In the meantime, the Town will work at amending its land-use bylaw to further encourage secondary suites and accessory dwellings, and establishing potential partnerships with developers and builders, said Greene.
There could be a grant program established by the Town to allow for financial assistance of up to $5,000 for existing homeowners who may have suites not currently in compliance with safety and building code requirements, he said.
“This has been a successful program in some other communities where you use that grant funding, working particularly with the fire department to ensure that non-compliant suites are at the very least brought up to a safety code standard that ensures suites are legal and safe,” said Greene.
Another aspect of the grant program would include grants up to $10,000 for the development of new secondary suites in more mature neighbourhoods, he said.
Council previously allotted $200,000 for the affordable housing implementation strategy in 2021, and Greene said the suggestion is to set up an annual fund for the next five years of $65,000 toward the legalization and development of secondary suites.
He recommended another $135,000 be set aside for incentivizing developers to include affordable housing and purpose-built rental units in newer neighbourhoods. That program would see the Town lowering the cost of living for residents by assisting developers in reducing the cost of building such units to 20 per cent below market value.
The property would then be tied to that value for a set amount of time, said Greene.
“It’s not something where it’s just an advantage to a builder that they get some kind of subsidy from a municipality, but they would actually have to hold it at that value for a period of time,” he said.
He suggested in future years $150,000 be allocated for developer-builder incentive programs.
It’s an aggressive amount of work to take on in 2021, he said, though some pieces have already started coming together such as talks with industry partners, identifying tools necessary, and applying for the grant to establish a data base.
Coun. Tanya Thorn expressed concern over the ambitious timeline for the implementation strategy, questioning whether it would impact the core services offered by the Town if resources were being used elsewhere to achieve what council had previously identified as a non-negotiable priority.
“I’m more concerned about the resourcing piece of it,” she said. “I know we’ve approved this as a strategic plan but I don’t know where the conversation has been on what we actually need for resourcing and funding to accomplish this.”
She agreed with the work that needs to be done on affordable housing, but said she’s concerned the math doesn’t add up with $200,000 allocated in the 2021 budget for the project, which allow for the grant incentive programs but may not be enough for additional costs and staff time incurred through the year.
“I’m just not sure about the workload that’s laid out here, if it can be accomplished with the resources we have and not impact core services and whether $200,000 even allows us to accomplish this,” said Thorn.
Vincent said she’s confident the allotted budget for 2021 will be sufficient, barring the possibility of not receiving the CMHC grant. She said the plan was developed based on the assumption the budget would be firm for this year.
“What is included here in 2021 is realistically what we believe we can accomplish with what’s been provided for in budget and with the resources that we have,” said Vincent.
Further detailed program elements are scheduled for a future Governance and Priorities Committee meeting.
For more information visit www.okotoks.ca
