Achi news desk-
There is progress in implementing Calgary’s housing strategy, but it may be some time before any benefits start to take hold, according to city officials.
City councilors on the Community Development Committee were given an update on the strategy on Wednesday, after it was approved by the council in September.
According to the city administration, five of the 98 recommendations in the strategy have been completed including the recently approved city-wide rezoning initiative, and efforts to ensure that several parcels of land owned by the city available for non-profit affordable housing providers.
City officials said work on 53 recommendations is ongoing, with another 12 progressing ahead of schedule.
The Committee also gave initial approval to a program aimed at encouraging the development of secondary rooms.
It is intended that approximately 80 percent of the actions in the strategy will be initiated by the end of 2024, according to a city report on the matter.
Ward 8 Cllr. Courtney Walcott, who chairs the committee, noted that progress on implementation was moving quickly but said it was important to be realistic about the results.
“We have to be self-aware that the time it takes to create a problem is almost as long as it will take to solve it,” Walcott told reporters.
“It’s going to take some time to get there so we’re going to need these constantly to make sure we’re at least moving in that direction.”
However, market conditions have worsened since the strategy was approved last fall.
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City officials noted that the rental vacancy rate fell to 1.1 percent, while the average rent for a two-bedroom unit jumped 12 percent to over $2,650 while the median price of residential housing rose 11 percent.
According to the city, the median price for a single-family home is now $718,400.
“It’s going to continue to get worse until we complete and push some more of these steps forward,” Walcott said.
The city report noted that the city administration and partners such as non-profit housing providers are facing challenges due to “capacity constraints, supply chain challenges, and rising costs.”
Those challenges were echoed by the HomeSpace Association, which is currently working on about 100 non-market housing units for families on two parcels of city-owned land at the Whitehorn and Fish Creek Lacombe LRT stations.
“We have a specific mandate around affordable housing but we also have other partners who build market housing,” HomeSpace CEO Bernadette Majdell told Global News.
“We are all competing for the same resources: labour, materials… At the moment, for us, we see a supply and demand problem.”
Last November, the city council approved an additional $90 million in capital funding and $135 million in operating and one-time funding over three years to implement the strategy’s recommendations.
That money has been earmarked to fund initiatives including the secondary room incentive program, a $20 million housing land fund, a program aimed at creating a centralized admissions process for people looking for affordable housing . a program to encourage the development of the city centre, and a program for Indigenous affordable housing.
The city will also receive $228.5 million from the federal government’s Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF).
According to the city administration, the target is to increase the housing supply by 41,858 units by October 2026, which includes 6,825 units motivated by HAF.
Ward 10 Cllr. Andre Chabot said he believes the city’s efforts are not doing enough to increase the supply of non-market housing.
“From my point of view, the only way to address the need at the moment is houses that are not on the market. Trying to address market housing by virtue of this investment is a drop in the bucket,” Chabot told reporters Wednesday. “What we are achieving on houses that are not on the market through this program is nominal. Only a few homes like maybe 1000 in total… I don’t see the return on investment, to be honest with you.”
The Committee also gave initial approval to the creation of a voluntary specialist advisory committee on housing, which will require final council approval later this month.
According to the city, the committee will help advise city officials on the implementation of the strategy and provide independent monitoring of progress towards addressing housing affordability.
& copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
