WESTLOCK – Two of the community’s leading businessmen have challenged Town of Westlock councillors to find a way to encourage new housing starts, saying employee retention at their companies has “become a struggle” due to the lack of new homes which they feel is the No. 1 issue facing the municipality if it wants to grow and prosper.
Precision Design and Manufacturing president Ehreth Horinek and his son Dan Horinek, who’s the dealer principal of Westlock Powersports and Marine, spent close to 30 minutes in front of councillors at their Jan. 9 meeting with Ehreth asking point blank: “Just wondering what the town has up its sleeves for maybe doing a push on housing developments, or an incentive for builders … something. We’ve got to do something because it’s hard to attract people.” Just over 90 people work at WPM and Precision making them two of the largest non-government employers in Westlock, with Dan noting “ … and we could probably use another 20 today if we could find them.”
“In the past 15 months we’ve probably hired 11 people from outside the community and they’re for positions from managers to a mechanic and an engineer. And probably only three or four have bought homes and the rest are travelling from Morinville, St. Albert or wherever. And traditionally those people won’t stay long term as the commute gets really old quickly and is expensive. I think some of those people would live here, but there’s no new homes available,” Ehreth said. “If you don’t grow, you die. That’s the same for a business or a town.”
“I know other businesses in town are growing at a fast pace and when you can’t find people how do you continue to grow? If we don’t have inventory to sell to people, it’s the same as the town … if there’s no houses to sell, how do you get more people to move into the community?” Dan asked.
Ehreth said that he recently sponsored a Ukrainian couple to emigrate to Canada and hired them both, but when it came time to find them housing all that was available was an apartment that “no one here would live in, that’s how bad it is.”
“When I moved to Westlock 40 years ago I lived in that apartment before I bought a house. The same carpet is on the floor … it’s worn right down to the strings. These poor Ukrainians, they came from a better house than that. But it was the best we could find as there was nowhere else to put them,” said Ehreth.
Mayor Ralph Leriger welcomed the discussion and said housing is only one part of the equation as “there’s a bigger and broader discussion that needs to be had” and “it’s going to have to be a community-wide effort.” Leriger also talked about how the municipality’s strategic plan is “designed to try and create growth for the community” while building capacity at the town office, in addition to re-writing the land-use bylaw and tweaking other town edicts, has been aimed at making the community more business friendly.
“Attracting development has proven to be challenging for us. When you meet with larger developers, they want to do 100 lots a year and are not interested in anything less and some of the medium-sized ones might be interested in doing 40 or 50. So, are they interested at the level that we can grow? No,” said Leriger. “You’ve got to find a smaller size of developer.”
Leriger said “a conspiracy of events” led to the proposed Greenfield Estates and Westgate Business Park development on the south side of town running aground. Since 2019, little has been heard on the proposed development that touted 54 low-density homes, 58 medium-density homes and two, six-unit townhouses. Previously, the last major housing development in Westlock was the Aspendale subdivision in the early 2000s that saw the lots sold by the town and the homes built by private contractors.
“With Westgate Developments that was what we had hoped we had found and through a conspiracy of events it’s been difficult for them to make anything happen. Now with rising interest rates, it’s going to be more difficult,” said Leriger, noting most of the homes currently on the market in town are “old” while the best vacant lots have already been snapped up.
Going forward councillors invited the Horineks to an upcoming economic development committee meeting, a group that includes reps from not only the town, but Westlock County and the Village of Clyde. Coun. Murtaza Jamaly called the Horineks “champions of industry” and applauded them “for coming forward and saying that we need to take a more proactive approach.” In a follow-up interview Jan. 10, CAO Simone Wiley said when the economic development committee meets again in the coming weeks, they’ll discuss inviting the Horineks, as well as other community leaders.
“I think the best outcome from this is to sit down with economic development and look and see what our ‘champions’ are interested in, what are they telling us and what is their need. I think that could be a really great outcome of today,” said Jamaly.
“I’m totally onside that there is a lack of inventory, and it has been hard as a municipality because we’re trying not to be the developer and we’re trying to incentivize private industry. I think our goal as a municipality has been to make sure we’re not in the way and not be the hinderance. But sometimes we need to be the catalyst and maybe that time is now.”
Leriger, as well as the Horineks, agreed that Westlock has a lot of strengths and “a very positive quality of life” it can offer to potential residents.
“But we need inventory for sure and that’s been our biggest challenge,” Leriger concluded.
