WESTLOCK — The Town of Westlock is hoping to be one of select municipalities approved for $2 million in federal funding to help solve the local housing shortage.
As outlined in the 2022 federal budget, the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF), overseen by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), is offering $4 billion to municipalities to fund initiatives that remove barriers to the housing supply, accelerate the growth of the industry, and support the development of complete, low-carbon and climate-resilient communities which are affordable, inclusive, equitable and diverse.
At their July 10 regular meeting, councillors voted 6-0 to direct administration to apply for the HAF, which has a short application window that opened in early July. Coun. Abby Keyes was absent.
“This has been a significant amount of work to put together. The application window for this particular grant is 45 days so you really need to be on it and ready to make the application,” said CAO Simone Wiley.
The town has created a required housing action plan needed to apply for the federal funds, noted planning and development manager Danielle Pougher, who also provided an overview and details on it to councillors. If successful, the town could receive an estimated $2.16 million, while the initiatives proposed in the action plan would be fully funded.
“The program’s intended to drive transformational change within the sphere of control of the local government regarding land use planning and development approvals,” said Pougher. “The objective of the fund is to accelerate the supply of housing across the country and result in at least 100,000 more housing units permitted than would have occurred without the program.”
Pougher also noted that applications are evaluated on several criteria, including a commitment to increasing housing supply, alignment with the objectives of the fund, effectiveness at increasing the supply of housing, and the demonstrated need for increased housing.
“Westlock falls within the small/rural/north/Indigenous stream of the fund, and we are required to include a minimum of five initiatives in the action plan,” Pougher added, noting they need the action plan approved by council prior to signing a contribution agreement with the CMHC.
“In our local context, housing, particularly the shortage of affordable and suitable housing for residents at all life-stages and economic situations, has a broad ranging impact on our community,” explained Pougher. “From the ability to attract new residents, to retain current and to enable businesses to grow and hire new and qualified staff,” she said. “The initiatives proposed aim at targeting both short-term supply issues and long-term improvements to the housing system as a whole.”
Pougher listed off the six initiatives in the town’s housing action plan which include a residential development incentive program, a secondary, garden and garage suite program, the creation of an Aspendale area structure plan, a residential subdivision project, improvements to the town’s housing policy framework and the introduction of an e-permitting system.
Councillors asked about estimated funding amounts, sufficient resources to manage and complete the housing action plan initiatives, approval timeline and commented on the work administration has done to prepare for the grant application.
“It will be interesting to see how our size factors into the decision making in awarding grants,” said mayor Ralph Leriger. “Because I don’t think there’ll be a lot of our contemporaries able to put in a really, really solid application and it wasn't long ago that we didn’t have the capacity as an organization to do that, so huge kudos, great, great job.”
Pougher noted they should know if they’re successful by September or October, with funds distributed shortly after.
“So, we would be able to start work on the initiative in the fall,” she said.
