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City Hall looking at affordable housing plan

Jan 17, 2019 | 5:31 PM

A new affordable housing strategy for Grande Prairie will go before a future city council meeting.

Affordable housing coordinator Reed Des Roches presented the scope of work involved in the Affordable Housing plan at Tuesday’s Community Living Committee meeting.

The plan involves six phases which include extensive stakeholder engagement. Affordable Housing Coordinator Reed Des Roches says right now the city is in the first phase of the plan.

“The first phase is the one we’re in now, which is information gathering,” says Des Roches. “This is the point where I analyze statistical data from Statistics Canada, CMHC, and our inventories on non-market housing. We use that information to identify what populations are most in need of affordable housing, where the gaps are in our supply of non-market housing, and what supports we could add to our programs.”

Des Roche says after they’ve completed their statistical analysis, they’d engage members of the public, people who are currently accessing housing services and non-profit organizations who provide services to better understand their needs. He says they would also consult with members of the housing industry to find out what barriers there are affecting affordable housing.

Des Roches explains the second phase is identifying and reviewing options. Data gathered from phase one would be used to identify tools that could be used to reach goals and evaluate options.

He says phase three is strategy preparation which would involve the evaluation of the feasibility of options with lots of potential. The budget would also be taken into consideration in this stage so that before adopting the plan, they could determine what resources are available to put into it. Des Roches says based on that process, they’d have their draft plan.

In phase four of the strategy, the draft plan would be distributed to the public and circulated to housing organizations and industries to provide feedback. Changes would then be made based on the feedback.

In phase five, the plan would be brought to council for consideration, and phase six would be the implementation of the plan.

“We’re hoping to start implementation in the fall. That would be really good timing because that’s when budget deliberations are. So, if the results of the strategy have any budget considerations – programs that would come out of it that require funding – then it would be considered at the fall budget deliberations.”

Des Roches says typically a project like this would take 12 – 15 months, but they’re aiming for eight months.

“It is an aggressive timeline, and it’s pretty optimistic. The reason I proposed it is because there’s a lot going on in housing and we really need to make a lot of decisions about what opportunities we’re taking advantage of, so we need a strategy as soon as possible. Also, a lot of work has already been done related to affordable housing in the city, and so a part of this is a matter of compiling that information. We also have a lot of good connections with local organizations and industry, so because we’re doing this in-house, it’s easier to make arrangements to engage with them.”

Another part of the plan is developing a housing corporation. Des Roches says there’s a clearly identified need for an organization that’s arms-length from the city that provides housing services, and through this process, they’re going to be identifying what needs the organization must fulfill. He notes the organization could take on developing affordable housing, land banking, acting as a guarantor for financing for housing projects, or providing assistance to organizations who want to build affordable housing, but don’t know the development process or how to get grants.

“There’s a ton of different options for the functions it could fulfill, and we need to narrow down exactly what its role is going to be in the community,” says Des Roches.

The next step for Des Roches is to develop a detailed communication plan for the process.