Okotoks council has taken the next step toward increasing the level of affordable housing in town.
Town council heard a final report at its Oct. 13 meeting from the Affordable Housing Task Force, which summarized its findings over the course of the past two years and presented recommendations for an action plan and strategy to be developed in the coming months.
“It’s been a lot of work and a lot of wringing of hands, making tough decisions to ensure we have the best strategy and there’s a lot of confidence in this report,” said Chris Boechler, chair of the task force.
The proposed strategy focuses on collecting and maintaining data on housing needs; providing the funds and resources required to address the needs; the possibility of forming partnerships and creating incentives for developers to build affordable housing options like purpose-built rental units; and a recommendation to establish a housing authority.
Through researching the housing status and needs in Okotoks, the task force developed the housing wheel, which moved away from a linear spectrum and recognized people may move fluidly from one stage to another throughout their lives depending on changes in circumstance.
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 providing up to 30 days of temporary housing and transitional housing, which allows for stays of two or three years with access to offsite services. Supported housing is more long-term and made up of subsidized and supportive living situations, including seniors living and homes for those with disabilities, mental health issues or addictions. Market housing involves ownership and rental housing, both purpose-built and secondary suites or accessory dwellings.
“The housing wheel was quite a revelation,” said Boechler. “The housing wheel really allows us to work with people and sets up a language that is a lot more open-minded and inclusive, where you’re not feeling like you’re judging people.”
Lisa Moffatt, of Resilience Planning, was the third-party consultant working with the Affordable Housing Task Force to compile and analyze data to develop a strategy.
She said some of the statistics around Okotoks housing are staggering. For starters, the population of the town doubled over 15 years from 14,000 to 29,000 in 2018, when data was collected, and as the number of people continues to increase so will need, she said.
Despite how it looks on paper, there is a housing crisis in town.
“Median income is relatively high, most people own their own homes, but despite these two points Okotoks does have an affordable housing issue,” said Moffatt. “It is the municipality with the fourth-least-affordable housing in Alberta.”
She said that can be attributed to a number of factors, such as developers and builders focusing on the single-detached market, which increased land values and provided for a housing environment with fewer choices.
In addition, the majority of employment options in Okotoks are in lower-paying jobs such as the retail and hospitality industries – which have also been further impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, she said. However, rental rates remain high.
The definition of affordable housing is a household that pays less than 30 per cent of its gross income on housing and utilities, she said, but in Okotoks 45 per cent of renters are paying more than 30 per cent of their income on these basic bills, compared to 36 per cent in the rest of the province.
“Many people who work in Okotoks can’t afford to live there,” said Moffatt. “There’s a shortage of affordable rental housing.”
She said one of the biggest recommendations from the task force is to create an environment that welcomes purpose-built rental housing, such as apartment complexes, which have not been built since the 1980s.
The new Municipal Development Plan (MDP), which received second reading from council in September, also addresses this concern by indicating neighbourhoods should include diverse housing options and inclusive communities, she said.
“We’re in alignment with that MDP,” said Moffatt. “The three main housing policies are to increase the variety of housing options throughout the community, increase non-market affordable housing for lower-income households, and provide housing to meet the community’s diverse needs.”
She said the municipality should not work alone on developing its affordable housing strategy – both the federal and provincial governments have committed to cutting homelessness and investing in affordable housing, so there are grants and partnership opportunities available.
The Town can utilize tools like changing land-use bylaws to address planning regulations, incentivizing developers to build affordable housing options, and partnering with non-profit organizations to develop transitional or low-income housing, she said.
In addition, the task force recommends creating a housing authority that can manage housing units in town.
Jeff Greene, director of development services, said the Town has identified a housing authority could be appropriate down the road, but it will likely be something the municipality evolves toward as it works with its non-profit and private sector partners to assess need and begin developing an action plan.
“Housing authority could be the ultimate umbrella under which all these different units are housed,” said Greene. “How that model is defined will require some further work.”
He added any housing authority and management model would be self-sustaining as far as funding, rather than relying on the tax base.
CAO Elaine Vincent said administration will begin work on an action plan to implement the recommended strategy immediately.
“Our goal is to attempt to have that implementation strategy done at the same time as this is considered for budget – that gives us less than four weeks to do that,” said Vincent. “We may not be able to do that because of the partnership conversations that have to be held across the community.”
She said the 2021 proposed budget will likely include estimated placeholder amounts for the affordable housing strategy, which would be finalized and brought to council for approval at a later date.
Accepting the implementation strategy when it comes forward would indicate the municipality is moving affordable housing from an optional service to a core service, and the base budget would increase to reflect a change in service level, said Vincent.
“(Council) would be changing the core services the municipality offers or potentially fund a partnership organization to deliver that so the gap is mitigated within the community,” she said.
