It's not the most urgent race against time, but the Southeast Regional College has three years to break ground on what they hope will be the perfect solution to housing the student enrolment numbers desired in the Saskatchewan Energy Training Institute in Estevan.
It's no secret that since SETI opened in 2012, the facility has been underutilized. Early in the summer, Dion McGrath, SRC president and CEO, said they would like enrolment to be around 80 per cent at this point in the facility's history, but it hovers much closer to just 40 per cent.
After studying the issue of low enrolment, the college found housing affordability in the Energy City to be the biggest obstacle in the way of the enrolment they would like to see. Given that it's an obstacle faced by most businesses and most industries in the city, the leaders at the college thought there could be a joint initiative between the college and local industry to work together on a solution.
As the college is funded publicly, and McGrath wants to team up with the private sector in Estevan, he hopes a partnership between the private and public sectors will win the day. With all the chatter at the provincial level about supporting public-private partnerships (P3s), McGrath said that while their housing project doesn't necessarily meet the project specs the province looks for in a P3 deal, particularly size and cost, the project is a P3 in spirit.
The college and the City of Estevan reached a memorandum of understanding this summer, where the City will hold a parcel of land near SETI in abeyance until 2017. McGrath said with the three-year deadline, the time to push the housing project forward is now.
"We set a period of three years in the MOU, simply because if we can't get something done in that time period, it's probably not going to be done," he said. "We've been working at this for 12 months now. The issue hasn't gone away, and if the economic forecasting that others are predicting (continues), the growth in Estevan isn't going to subside."
The concepts of affordable housing are easier enough to grasp. It's funding that remains a big issue.
"We need to have some conversations with the province regarding the student part, both in terms of capacity and resources available. In conjunction with that, (we have to) identify and solidify business and industry support to want to do it as well. There are tandem activities going on."
He noted the only way to do affordable housing is to reduce costs. With the City setting land aside for the project, it's a good start.
"That land is a huge cost for a project. If the provincial government sees fit to provide some public investment, that reduces cost," noted McGrath, who said they intend to set up as a non-profit. "We're not in this to make money, so the whole profit margin isn't required for us."
He said the rents would cover capital renewal, and a reserve fund will be developed to ensure maintenance can happen when it's necessary.
McGrath said they hope the private investors will come to the table to build the units they wish to lease.
"We want to marry that with the public sector investment for the student portion. Notionally, I would term it as a P3. What we are trying to pull together is a P3 partnership," said McGrath.
He added they hope to work closely with developers to realize what would work best regarding design and size of the units. At the moment, they are pursuing a townhouse style over an apartment complex.
"At the heart of all this is a lot of businesses have told us they can't fill jobs," said McGrath, who noted there are about 1,000 job vacancies in Estevan at any given time. "That's a huge lost opportunity for the economy, having that many positions going unfilled. What it means is there are a lot of companies losing productivity because they're not operating at full capacity.
"We as a college are having issues because of the housing situation in Estevan. Our learners can't afford the rents that are there, or some of the places they have lived at in the past may have been questionable. In order for us to grow and enhance our programming and to serve the needs and to help train people for those 1,000 jobs that are there students need a place to live."
He said housing is an issue of strategic importance that needs to be addressed if the college and other industries in the southeast expect to continue to prosper.
The housing project includes two parts: dedicated student housing and capital lease units, made available to businesses.
"Affordable housing will go a long way to helping us as a college be better at labour force development. Those companies that might be interested in partnering with us on affordable housing, for them, it will provide long-term security for their labour force development."
Businesses may secure space for their labour force by providing the investment on the unit and are then able to sub-lease it to employees.
"That's a real rough sketch of the concept," noted McGrath. Each lease would have a term. Under a 10-year lease, the company would have the rights to the unit for the term of the lease, but if their labour needs change and they don't require that unit, it can be put into the "pool" where it could be rented out to anyone in the community.
"We've been setting up and meeting with various industry and businesses who have expressed an interest in hearing more about the affordable housing project and how it could help address their labour force issues and growth issues," said McGrath. "We've been having those conversations, and they've been going quite well. We've had some very positive feedback and very high level interest."
The discussion will continue for the next month, and the college will also be engaging the Province of Saskatchewan in the fall.
"We've also provided government some information on the project and where it's at in development. We're hoping we're going to engage in more dialogue with the provincial government to see where they are at and what their concerns might be."
