Housing issues have become a problem in the City of Yorkton but with the help of a local committee, council hopes to improve the situation.
On Monday Ron Skinner, Co-Chair of the Yorkton Housing Committee, made a presentation to council to provide an update on progress and suggestions of what can be done to address city housing needs.
The housing committee was established to both garner input from the public and industry as well as to evaluate and provide recommendations. The committee mandate also includes projecting the city's housing needs 10 years into the future.
Formed in March of this year, the committee has already undertaken much work to turn things around says Skinner.
"We've really done a major review of what we'd like to see happen. We had come up with originally 15 points of action and we've filed a request for the actions to be taken by city council so we can create housing opportunities in all sectors - from supported living, to first time home buyers, affordable housing and the development of rental properties."
Skinner says the committee would like to see council develop a detailed incentive policy for rental construction.
"We currently have a policy in place, but we feel that it needs to be revisited."
The current policy says Skinner, is too restrictive and if made more accessible and broader in scope would encourage the building or more rental units.
"Another thing... is we would like the city to help facilitate a supply of non-tradional, market based lots."
By that says Skinner, he means smaller lots (30 to 40 feet wide) designed for smaller homes.
"We would do this in a packaged area in the midst of other residential developments... we know this is currently being worked on but we encourage the speedy process continue."
The committee is also requesting stimulus package for basement and secondary suites.
"These could be property tax incentives... we've left it open for the city to study. As a realtor for 23 years, there are a lot of older houses in our community that were built in the late 40s... which have a rental suite in the basement... as time and affordability went on, secondary suites have been abandoned... this is an area where incentives could be in place.
"Another idea we've talked about is to have the city become a program resource centre for all municipal, provincial and federal programs," says Skinner.
"It's very easy to say but it's become very apparent to the committee that there's a tremendous amount of information out there to be made sense of... our city administration does a very good job keeping on top of that as best we can but we all agreed around the table there's an opportunity for the city to step forward, put a link on the web site that would information available to people on an on demand basis."
It's a way to bring people and resources together he suggests to get the investments flowing in the community.
