CANMORE – The theme for the 2023 Canmore Community Housing business plan is to be bold.
The CCH board unanimously approved its annual business plan, with a focus on looking at any and all methods to add affordable housing to its inventory on CCH-owned land and ways to incentivize private developers to provide affordable housing.
“We had a couple of options of staying the course and do what we’ve done of taking on projects here and there and adding to the housing inventory a couple of dozen units at a time or be ambitious and really tackle the problems of affordability in our town head on,” said Rob Murray, CCH’s board chair.
“I think this business plan demonstrates the ambition moving this agenda item forward. … I’m really excited about it.”
The coming year will see CCH aim to rezone a section of land it owns in the area possessed by Three Sisters Mountain Village Properties Limited, with development financing potentially in place by early 2024. Master planning for the Palliser lands is also a top priority, while the possibility of developing land on a lot of Palliser Lane for a rental building will also be examined.
CCH will also work with the Town to look at future projects and parcel titles transferred to CCH at the end of 2023 or early 2024. Six affordable units in Arnica Lodge will be added to CCH’s inventory – including the three added in February – and a final agreement with Canadian Rockies Public Schools for up to five resident restricted market units is due to take place in the third quarter.
A new goal of research and advocacy was also added to the plan to look at legal options for CCH and the Town to negotiate more affordable housing units on private land, examine a sustainable building policy for CCH homes, identify areas of Canmore for buildings up to six units that could be allowed in exchange for affordable housing and work with BOWDA and smaller developers to find where there may be common interests.
The plan was presented by Lisa de Soto, the Town’s former CAO who is now serving in a strategic leadership support role, after former CCH managing director Dougal Forteath was fired without cause in February.
Multiple board members praised de Soto’s work to redo parts of the business plan to better align with the board’s strategic goals after the initial draft plan didn’t fully meet the board’s goals.
The business plan will see $100,000 in funding for a housing action plan, $100,000 for master planning of the Palliser lands and $15,000 for social media initiatives.
During the board’s workshop to create its business plan, priority was given to accessing additional land to build housing, looking at potential new financing tools, increasing density on the Palliser lands, partnering with other organizations on developing housing and streamlining development applications that include affordable housing.
Among the next steps was to find what actions would align with the Town’s and CCH’s strategic plans, business plans and workplans for the coming year. A five-year housing action plan to look at shortfalls in Canmore’s housing market and set goals to attain was also recommended for further consideration.
Murray said it was important to look at any and all opportunities to add affordable housing for Canmore residents.
“We are open to exploring anything and things we might not have done before in an effort to really be aggressive in tackling the affordability issues in our community,” he said.
CCH has 160 units in its homeownership portfolio with an assessed value of more than $51 million, while the 118 rental units have an assessed value of more than $20 million.
With several irons in the fire and multiple plans upcoming, Murray said as a long-time board member the coming year will be an important time for the organization.
“To actually see some projects coming forward or even in the early stages that could potentially make a real dent in this issue in our community, it’s very exciting to be on the ground floor and I’m really excited to see the direction it will go and where we’ll take the direction of the organization. We have a lot of big ideas and we’re really excited to execute on them.”
