BANFF – The Town of Banff is eyeing some municipally owned vacant lands in the industrial compound for potential development of future employee housing.
According to the municipality, there are currently Town-owned parcels of land available for development of purpose-built rental units in the industrial compound that are currently primarily used for surface parking or third-party rentals.
“We have looked at models that exist in the compound that have not had commercial floor space associated with them and asked if that’s an opportunity that we could use there,” said Darren Enns, the director of planning and development for the Town of Banff.
“However, I would still highlight that doesn’t overcome the proximity and connectivity pieces that other residential developers in the compound face, hence the need to think about it a bit more big picture.”
Development of an area redevelopment plan (ARP) for the industrial compound is on the capital books. This project was originally planned to follow work on the Railway Lands ARP, but because that ARP was deferred, the industrial district ARP will come back to council at service review to determine funding in 2024.
Given limits to commercial development in the industrial compound as part of a town-wide federally legislated cap, there has been an increased interest in residential development there since bylaws changed in 2002 to allow for it.
“This might be something when we start the area redevelopment plan,” said Coun. Barb Pelham.
In July, administration brought a report to council exploring increasing the amount of Town of Banff employee housing based on earlier council direction coming out of 2023 service review.
At that time, council learned that the availability and affordability of housing in the tourist town was a challenge in recruiting employees to professional positions within the municipality.
Barbara King, the director of human resources for the Town of Banff, acknowledged the community is experiencing a critical shortfall of available and affordable housing for residents in all sectors, not just the Town of Banff.
“We know there are initiatives taking place in various phases that we would likely have access to as an employer as well,” she said, partly in reference to the federal housing accelerator fund application.
King said the municipality has long leveraged location and access to healthy lifestyle and outdoor summer and winter activities to attract candidates.
While these are attractive to most applicants, she said the Bow Valley’s housing availability, high rental rates and high costs to buy a home are proving to be a deterrent for some of the professional roles.
In addition, she said candidates who can’t replace homes in their current location for like-for-like homes in the Bow Valley, where price, value or size of homes may not compare, find it challenging.
“Over the years, employees who have been candidates for the Town, have recognized that availability of housing, rental rates and housing purchase rates have certainly started to impact some of those decisions,” said King.
The Town of Banff currently has 30 units in its employee housing inventory, including two bachelor, 13 one-bedrooms, 11 two-bedrooms, three three-bedroom units and one four-bedroom unit.
In the Town of Banff, employees are not expected to remain in employee housing throughout their careers, though council has not established a threshold for what "throughout their careers" means.
Administration, however, has implemented a series of initiatives to encourage and help employees transition to the local housing market, including a matching no-interest loan to help with the purchase of their first home in the Bow Valley.
King said a cap of five years has also been placed on lease agreements for the Rocky Mountain Housing Coop to allow people at lower job grades to access the housing inventory at affordable rates.
In addition, she said a long-term tenancy premium is tacked on to rental rates as tenure in employee housing increases, though they remain below market.
“The intent of the premium is the longer you stay in housing, you pay a premium to get you closer to market rates,” she said, noting this premium affects 10 employees of the 28 permanent-style housing units.
Administration also noted that the acquisition or development of property or purpose-built rental units in order to increase Town of Banff employee housing will have a critical impact on the municipality’s existing and future debt limits.
A sample calculation for development of a 4,300-square-foot, 16-room fourplex rental unit on existing Town-owned land would be approximately $3.2 million.
