The Banff Housing Corporation’s board of directors wants to cap the residency points as part of the priority process for those seeking homes on its registered resale list.
At its meeting Friday (Oct. 28), the BHC’s board of directors recommended that council – acting as shareholders of the BHC – cap the residency points at 20.
At present, residents collect a point for each year they have lived in Banff, and one for each year in the Bow Valley. Any application can have a maximum of two adult applicants.
If approved by the shareholders, the change would not come into affect until 18 months after the decision. Any proposed changes would also be subject to full public consultation.
“We are eventually going to look at other areas of the resale list and point allocation, but the board felt this was a glaring concern,” said Councillor Paul Baxter, chairman of the BHC’s board of directors.
“It centres around the discussion on when are you a local. Is it after four years, after seven years, when? At what point do you become local or more local or more of a resident? It’s about making it fair.”
An order of unit selection has been established by awarding on objective criteria such as length of time lived in Banff and/or the Bow Valley, number of children and whether people currently own another unit dwelling.
At present, one point per adult is awarded for each year in which they meet the BHC residency requirements and have lived in the Bow Valley, and one additional point per adult for each year in the Banff townsite.
Applicants are also awarded 10 points for each dependent child under the age of 18 or dependent adult over 18 whose permanent residence is with the applicant. Five points are given to each dependent child under 18 or adult over 18 who live part-time in the home.
For children of single parents and when the single parent is the adult applicant, 10 additional points are awarded for each dependent child under 18 whose permanent residence is with the applicant, or five additional points for each child where shared custody applies.
As well, 10 points are awarded per application, where all listed applicants do not own any dwelling units anywhere, either personally, jointly, indirectly or through business assets.
Meanwhile, the board of directors is proposing to stick with a flat fee, instead of moving to a percentage-based fee, for selling BHC equity share properties through the registered resale list.
At its meeting last week, the board asked administration to return with a report with a fixed rate fee, with justification of the costs of the services provided for that fee. The current fee is $2,500.
All other user fees will remain unchanged until further notice.
“At this point, we are just looking for administration to bring back costs involved with selling a home, so we can make a more informed decision on a fixed, non-percentage resale fee,” said Baxter.
“Depending on the report we get, that flat fee could go up, it could go down or it could stay the same, but yes, the talk of a percentage fee is off the table.”
Had a two per cent fee been charged on the seven property sales on the registered resale list in 2011, the fee collected by the BHC would have been $65,593 instead of $17,500 based on the flat fee.
At a three per cent commission, it would have been $98,390 based on the sale of those seven homes, while a 1.5 per cent fee would have generated $49,195.
