The big item before North Battleford council last Monday night was the North Battleford Housing Strategy and Action Plan.
Alan Wallace of consulting firm V3 was on hand to present the finished document as a PowerPoint presentation to council on the study’s findings.
Housing Strategy consultations had taken place back in the fall of last year and included open houses, an online survey and meetings with stakeholders. The effort built on the Housing Study that had been done and presented in 2015.
Monday’s meeting was an opportunity for Wallace to provide the full findings to council on what the perceived housing needs were in the city.
Wallace laid out the housing situation in North Battleford. The main issue, he made clear, was a lack of options.
“I wouldn’t characterize any of the issues in North Battleford as being an affordability issue,” said Wallace. “It’s really around choice and it could be an income issue more than a house price issue,”
He noted there was a large demand for seniors housing with supports, and a demand for better student housing as well. The range of housing lacked choice as well.
According to current projections for the city, the need is for 64 new housing units per year, with 10 affordable units.
As part of the process of gathering feedback, an online survey ran between Sept 27 and Nov. 13 of last year and there were 210 responses to that.
The survey found 74 percent were in favour of the city making policy change, 83 percent were in favour of the city taking a greater leadership role, and 65 percent agreed other organizations should play a greater role.
A housing condition assessment was also included in the presentation, which assessed the condition of housing throughout the city. The vast majority of homes across the city were in good condition.
There was also a stakeholder consultation with six interviews taking place.
As for the finalized housing strategy that was formulated, the goals, priorities and strategies are grouped around five main areas: policy changes, financing incentives, community supports and partnerships, research and monitoring and education awareness.
Some immediate policy changes being proposed include prioritizing inspections, pre-designating sites for care homes, offering tax title property for affordable housing, legalizing existing secondary suites, and creating specific zoning for affordable housing,
For “financial incentives”, the strategy recommends establishing a housing reserve, a down payment grant program, a land acquisition incentive and tax abatements.
Under “researching and monitoring”, tracking concentration of rentals is something that could be done immediately, and doing a homelessness count was recommended.
Under “education and awareness”, it was recommended to create a community workshop as well as creating a housing handbook. Monitoring provincial and federal programs closely was also recommended as was celebrating National Housing Day annually.
Three “potential” housing projects were also identified: seniors housing with supports, quality student housing project, and then housing for new families.
As for immediate steps to take, the housing strategy is proposing the following: to conduct a community workshop in the second quarter of 2018, for the city to hire a housing co-ordinator position, for policy changes to be addressed, to identify actions for the Battlefords Affordable Housing and Homelessness (BAHA) committee, to establish the housing reserve, and develop the housing handbook.
“If you have these six underway that’s a great start to the Action Plan”, Wallace said.
The indication from city manager Jim Puffalt following the presentation is that administration will come back to council with an implementation plan for the Housing Strategy.
In meeting with reporters afterwards, Mayor Ryan Bater said the next step is “to engage our partners on the development of an action strategy.”
“We’ve got regional partners with interests in housing, we have a municipality just across the river with interests in housing. Our tribal councils, both the BATC and BTC have expressed interests in working with the city on housing. We want to explore all those partnerships.”
