Photo/ Habitat for Humanity/ Facebook

By Courtney Almeida

New Housing Project

The City of Grande Prairie has plans for a new affordable housing project

Apr 30, 2019 | 12:20 PM

The City of Grande Prairie has a new low-income housing project on the horizon, through a partnership with Habitat for Humanity. The build will involve the purchase of five to six parcels of land by the City, which will be funded through a provincial grant.

This comes after the City received a report from administration, as part of their affordable housing masterplan, which identified that under any scenario Grande Prairie would continue to be short of affordable housing units up until 2030.

“Today we have a number of families and individuals on extremely long waitlists and so I think it’s a responsibility of the City and City Council to try to identify opportunities to make a dent in that issue and we’ve taken a number of steps this term, initiating the start of our affordable housing masterplan, starting the development of an affordable housing corporation. Those things together will give us the tools we need to be able to address that deficit,” says Mayor Bill Given.

The purchase of new land to begin the build is projected to cost the City approximately $500,000 to $600,000 but those funds are expected to come from existing Provincial Affordable Housing Grant Funding.

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“We had was some pre-existing provincial grant dollars that are actually already in the City’s possession. We just needed to identify the use to the Province,” said Given.

Council is expected to request up to $879,723 of that existing funding, but that amount would, “likely be more than we would need to be able to support just the Habitat for Humanity project and so it will give us the ability to acquire land to support other affordable housing projects in the future.”

The provincial funds remain unused from other City housing projects and the province has requested that the City identify a use for the remaining amount allocated, as the original timeframe for agreed upon funding has expired.

On February 26, 2019, at a Community Living Committee meeting, Habitat for Humanity requested that the City support a build in the community by providing land.

The National non-profit organization works to offer affordable homeownership to low-income households, through the utilization of volunteers and donations.

Habitat for Humanity requested enough land be purchased by the City to build five dwellings (two semi-detached homes and one single detached), depending on provided land.

Given explains that the City has been working to identify land to support the prospective Habitat for Humanity build and that, “land availability is going to be one of the most important things to get any project underway.”

Additional project costs will be supported by donations through funding from community organizations such as the Rotary Club, who is already behind the new project.

City findings show that the new project meets the, “original intent of the funds and represents an excellent opportunity to advance new construction in both an expedient and cost-effective manner.”

The City will now work towards securing an appropriate site for the proposed build and a report will be brought back to be discussed at a future Community Living Committee meeting.