The City of St. Albert is receiving nearly $12 million in federal funding to push forward city housing initiatives.
On March 21, the federal government announced a grant of $11.8 million to the City of St. Albert as part of round two of its Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) grant program, administered by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
"It has been a good month for St. Albert," St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron said, reflecting on both the grant funding and the announcement of a new school just last week. "This one, especially, I think is going to make a big difference in our housing stock in St. Albert."
City planning manager Katie Mahoney shared the mayor's enthusiasm.
"Grant money like this doesn't come around very often," Mahoney said. "It was a fantastic opportunity, and also the process itself is fairly competitive. So, we put our best application forward."
Heron said the grant money will be used to advance work on a number of fronts.
The funds will be directed toward seven initiatives approved under the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF), including a traffic corridor intensification strategy, quick wins and redistricting zoning changes, and a neighbourhood intensification strategy. The city also plans to develop a public lands redevelopment strategy to increase housing supply, implement an electronic building permit processing program, conduct a parking regulation study to reduce parking requirements abd develop a concierge service program.
"All this stuff costs money that the city could have done on our own, but it would have taken a lot longer. This will allow us to advance some of these strategies and get them into our Land Use Bylaw faster," Heron said, pointing to the parking regulation study as an example.
"We've already done a little bit to reduce parking, but until you have data and support on how that works, it's kind of hard to go all the way, but parking is a big cost. And if you ask a developer to put in a lot of cars, that's less money you can put towards the actual house," she said.
Another initiative that will be beneficial is the electronic building permit processing program.
"For years we've been talking about an e-permit system, or an electronic online platform for all of our applications," Mahoney said. "But this federal funding has really kind of got us up and running, so to speak, with such a transformational change, because it does require resources. It requires funds and time to do that."
She said although a lot of municipalities have moved to this type of platform, right now St. Albert accepts applications "the old-fashioned way," either in person via hard copies, or through email.
"This would really modernize our application process."
Heron said the city is doing what it can to remove barriers for anyone who wants to build housing in St. Albert.
"Anything that we can do to take away any barriers for somebody who wants to build, whether it's a duplex or a big highrise or townhouses, whatever it takes, this is the kind of stuff we need to do," she said. "We need to build."
Heron said St. Albert's vacancy rates in the affordable housing range sit around 1.8 per cent.
"We have no vacancies and nowhere for people to go," she said. "So, the more we build, the better. And the faster we build, the better."
In a news release, Heron said the funding will help add an additional 302 new housing units over and above the average number of units developed annually within the next three years.
"We're expected to have building permits for new housing units already approved by the end of the program term, which ends on March 31, 2028," said Lory Scott, affordable housing liaison officer.
Heron said St. Albert's work with the 22 St. Thomas Street project, donating the land and giving extra cash for the project, shows what a priority affordable housing is for the city and this council. This federal funding is a key part of seeing that through.
"St. Albert's very committed to doing our part in the affordable housing crisis," Heron said. "And so this is key to achieving the outcomes of the housing priority in our strategic plan."
Congratulations to council members and administration for gaining these much-needed funding dollars! It's not clear how they successfully managed to negotiate and secure the funds despite Alberta's Bill 18 introduced by the UCP. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, when Bill 18 was introduced in April last year, said it was needed because Ottawa “funds in a certain way, based on a certain ideology.” Did we somehow pass the chemtrail test or some other unnamed and sinister Federal ideology for the UCP to decide that affordable housing is urgently needed? Great job getting us the dough, thank you!