The Town of Banff is lifting any remaining conditions and proceeding with purchase of a property at 221 Beaver Street.
At a council meeting on Tuesday (May 24), town council gave second and third reading to a bylaw to borrow $670,000 of the $1 million needed to buy the building on Beaver Street from Bow Valley Credit Union.
Councillor Grant Canning, who was one of three councillors to oppose the purchase, voiced support for the borrowing bylaw.
“This is about how we fund the purchase that has already been agreed to by council,” he said. “I think the question today is how we’re going to do it, not whether we should do it.”
The Bow Valley Regional Transit Services Commission currently rents the lower floor of the building at 221 Beaver Street, and the upper level with a three-bedroom housing unit and den houses local tenants.
The Town of Banff wants to use the residential unit for its own staff accommodation by summer 2017 at the latest.
Council directed administration to give the existing residential tenants up to 10 months to find a new place, which is three months longer than their existing lease that is due to expire at the end of December this year.
Canning said he wanted to give them the additional time to the end of March 2017 to find a new place to live in Banff, given there is a critical housing crunch. But, if there’s a mutually agreeable arrangement with the Town, they could be out sooner if they wanted.
“There are lots of people in our community who really struggle finding places to live, and oftentimes when they are getting notice to vacate their premises, that generally does lead to stress and anxiety,” he said.
“The intent is to find a balance between turning the apartment into staff accommodation and still providing us time to do that, and providing the existing tenants more time to find something in a market where there is a zero per cent vacancy rate.”
Coun. Ted Christensen voted against giving the tenants extra time to find a new home.
“I have no problem honouring the lease to the end of the lease,” he said. “I find the additional three months not warranted.”
The purchase price of the Beaver Street property is $1,005,000 and $670,000 of that will be financed with a 30-year Alberta Capital Finance Authority debenture. The remaining funds will come from general capital reserves.
“Repayment of the debentures will be financed over the 30-year term through revenues collected from commercial and residential rents collected from the property,” said Chris Hughes, the Town’s senior accountant.
