The Banff Housing Corporation (BHC) won’t commission a study any time soon to determine the community’s housing needs over the next decade, or to help determine the organization’s future.
On a 4-3 vote, Banff town council has turned down a BHC request for $70,000 in the wake of opposition from the business community and arguments Banff’s 2002 housing study could be updated in-house for much less money.
Councillor Leslie Taylor, who sits on the BHC’s board of directors, tried relentlessly to convince her colleagues of the need for the study, which would serve not only the BHC’s purposes, but also other organizations in town.
She also said a study would help shape BHC’s future, for example, whether to continue the organization in its current form or take it down to more of a maintenance level.
“A study will help the BHC as it reaches its decisions in the coming year about the future of the organization. There are a number of possible outcomes depending on what the housing study says the need is,” she said.
“If we were to find ourselves with a developable piece of land, it would be difficult to approve a development and be sure we were meeting the needs of the community,” she added.
“There is a cost to doing it, but there’s also a cost to not doing it.”
The BHC put its funding request to council as part of 2012 operating budget deliberations, which wrapped up last Wednesday (Dec. 14). Only Councillors Taylor, Chip Olver and Paul Baxter were in favour of the study.
The last housing study was in 2002 and it concluded that affordability and the cost of housing were the most important housing issues in Banff. At that time, the shortfall in dwelling units was identified at 419 units.
The study recommended affordable entry-level housing options become a residential development priority in Banff, especially in light of an earlier survey that indicated 48 per cent of renters were in housing that is not affordable.
The report, by Praxis Inc., recommended the Town secure more land from Parks Canada to meet the entry-level housing requirements, as well as for transitional housing for seniors.
Coun. Stavros Karlos, a former BHC board member and chairman, was against spending the money on the study, saying a 2002 housing study could be updated in-house.
He said it would be a waste of time and money to do a new study if council was unwilling to move forward with a major housing development anyway, no matter what the study results indicated.
“Unless this council is willing to commit to a large-scale capital project expenditure, and if they’re not willing to invest in that no matter what a housing study says, we shouldn’t do a study,” he said.
Olver said $70,000 is not an amount she wants to spend, but she reluctantly said she sees the need for the updated study to get a true picture of the housing situation.
“There’s a lack of agreement within the community as to what the housing needs are,” she said. “I believe housing is still a big need, but I don’t believe the community has a common goal.”
Coun. Paul Baxter, chairman of the BHC board, said a housing study would help the BHC and other organizations have the confidence to make more informed decisions.
“Should a large parcel of land arrive on our laps at an affordable price, the BHC wouldn’t be confident in deciding what type of housing,” he said.
“Whether that be a Glen Sather-type house or multiple cinderblock or 30 condos, whether that’s a 1,500-sq.ft condo or 750-sq.ft condos.”
Taylor said past BHC developments have not involved council committing money, but have been self-funding and through securing of grants. BHC has some money in reserves.
“When the BHC was founded, everyone knew what the problem was – the loss of young families from the community. And over the years the BHC has been very effective in helping deal with that,” she said.
“Now the answer to what is the problem is not so clear, and a study will give us an arms-length, non-biased, statistically supported version of what is the problem.”
The BHC is a non-profit developer. To date, it has built seven housing developments for a total of 173 units and 45 suites. The BHC has since acquired 10 units for a total of 183.
Within the portfolio of 183 units are 22 units that have a resale price tied to a price restriction.
