By Norm Park
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With a student enrollment less than half of what it should be in the Energy City, the Southeast Regional College has found an ally in the City of Estevan in their attempt to improve the adult learning experience in the area.
The major sticking point for young people eager to pick up skill training in an institutional setting in the city, is housing availability and affordability to be more precise.
That issue is now near the top of the "to do" list for the college's president and CEO, Dion McGrath.
With that in mind, the college and the City of Estevan have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that would see the City set aside a four-acre site it owns, near the college's Energy Training Institute campus, and making it available for the college's purchase for the construction of a multi-storey, lower-cost housing project. The plan is to have half the units designed for student accommodations while other half could be built to accommodate employees of Estevan and area based businesses that benefit from the college's training programs.
The 86 unit complex the college has in mind, would include a 90 space child care centre to serve the student base as well as the community as a whole.
McGrath said there is a need to get some private sector companies engaged in the project as well as the provincial and federal governments to enable the plan to move forward with confidence to provide affordable housing.
If this forward momentum is seen quickly, the actual construction might be able to begin as early as next spring. It just makes sense, said McGrath, for the college, the city, local industry and the students.
The SRC is prepared to formulate the business plan and would develop the requests for proposals for design and construction. They would also carry out the capital campaign to raise the necessary funds to support the plan that could range in the $15 to $20 million circle.
The City would not only assist with the land availability issue, but could waive certain fees and levies associated with traditional development's construction, said Mayor Roy Ludwig. The City would hold the land in abeyance for the project until 2017.
"The window though is clearly sooner, not later if the capital plan falls into place," said McGrath.
Right now, the college and the partnering Energy Training Institute is running at about 40 per cent of capacity. It should be between 70 and 80 per cent, said the college's CEO. He said the inevitable response he gets from prospective students as to why they back away from Estevan, is the lack of decent, affordable housing.
The proposed complex would include one, two and three bedroom living quarters of between 600 and 1,000 square feet to accommodate employees of companies involved in the partnership as well as having half the units built for adult students who could lease space on short-term agreements.
McGrath said the federal and provincial governments are being approached since they have participated in similar housing models in other communities, including Meadow Lake, where the cost of housing did decrease once the infill housing projects were completed and there was a return to more normal market conditions.
"I am getting a degree of interest from the companies I have approached so far," said McGrath from the college's headquarters in Weyburn.
"It's about growth and 95 per cent of the people we've approached are based in Estevan, he said, referring to the townhouse styled units that would be built.
With an increase in students to more efficient levels, there would be a corresponding increase in programming on the Estevan campus.
"It's a beautiful building there that we need to optimize and it's well below 50 per cent of its capabilities right now," McGrath added.
There has been no particular issue with obtaining the services of qualified instructors and educators, just the students.
"If we had the numbers, then we could offer welding programs, as one example and put it in a regular cycle of courses. We could have courses designed for oil well riggers. These could be entry level classes that would save money for companies. There would be more certificate courses for students to understand the professional working environment they'll be entering," McGrath said.
The college's CEO went on to say, "we'll not be in competition with traditional builders and developers and we might even be able to use the construction site as an opportunity for students learning trades such as electrical, plumbing and carpentry.
"We have to engage the private sector and turn their interest into financial commitment, along with the governments. We still have over 1,000 jobs going unfilled right in and around Estevan, and this housing thing is just putting a big damper on growth."
McGrath said the data collected for the Estevan market is quite accurate, unlike data collection regarding the labour market in and around Weyburn.
"The economic engine for Saskatchewan has been and continues to be the southeast. It's not just Estevan and Weyburn either. Lampman, Midale, Oxbow, Carlyle, Carnduff, have their challenges too in meeting demand. The growth has been here for a long time and although it's resource sector driven, unless there is a theory out there that says oil drilling is going to decline a lot, and the technology fails, there are hundreds of millions of dollars to invest and at least that much already invested. So my prediction is continued long term growth," said McGrath.
Ludwig added that interest has also been sought from the Rural Municipality of Estevan and that perhaps other nearby RMs could be approached to gauge the level of interest at that government level.
The MOU establishes the parameters for the City and college to work toward a more formal agreement and verifies the pre-planning stage undertaken by the college when it commissioned the Bakken Formation Economic Impact Assessment Report, completed earlier this year.
