By Curtis Galbraith

City Hall

Rezoning on 105 Avenue land approved, but not necessarily for supportive housing

Nov 2, 2020 | 8:05 PM

Grande Prairie City Council has approved zoning changes for a vacant lot on 105 Avenue that would allow a supportive housing project to be built there, but it doesn’t necessarily mean there will be one.

Mayor Bill Given says the change to a direct control zoning gives council authority over what might be built on that land.

“This does not mean that anything will be built there. It just means that the zoning is in place for that to happen. In order for any development to get built on that site, it would have to go through a public process again at City Council and it would also include a public notification.”

Two weeks ago, Council approved the rezoning of the vacant building adjacent to City Hall on 98 Street to develop a 44-unit supportive housing project, with the site in the VLA area being pushed to Monday’s meeting for further discussion.

RELATED: Council approves zoning changes for one permanent supportive housing facility; more discussion coming for second site

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A lot in Gateway is still being considered for the second supportive housing facility, but a report is still being compiled on that idea.

The application deadline for federal funding for this project is December 31. Given says this is part of a billion-dollar announcement for rapid rehousing.

“Administration provided an update to us to say that about $500 million of that was directed to the largest cities and then there is another $500 million that is available to communities Canada-wide. That is the pot of money the City of Grande Prairie would be looking to make an application to.”

Given believes they would be able to use the funding on a Gateway facility, even if the 105 Avenue location was put on the grant application.

“In order to submit an application, the city needs to have an identified and appropriately zoned parcel of land. That is why there was some urgency to ensuring that we did have a piece of land zoned, even if that piece of land was not the ultimate site that we might go forward with developing.”

Councillor Wade Pilat had suggested postponing the rezoning decision until December 14, but that idea was rejected by council.

He and Councillor Jackie Clayton voted against third reading of the Land Use Bylaw changes that would allow the rezoning. Councillor Yad Minhas was not at the meeting.

Pilat told Monday’s council meeting he would like to see some sort of park for neighbourhood youth go up on that 105 Avenue land instead.