A new(er) board of directors has been tasked with developing Canmore’s affordable housing policies and portfolio though the municipality’s housing corporation.
Canmore Community Housing Corporation’s only shareholder, the Town of Canmore, held its annual general meeting for the crown corporation in October and voted to change the board of director’s makeup.
The biggest change was in regard to who sits as council’s representative on the board. Councillor Joanna McCallum has been on CCHC for three years, took on a leadership role with the organization as chair in the spring of 2015 and kept it running while the board searched for a new executive director for several months last year.
The discussion of who would sit on CCHC as council representative occurred behind closed doors, however, and Councillor Rob Seeley and Mayor John Borrowman were named by council motion.
The shareholder meeting also saw public directors named to the board: Sue Anderson, Steve Ashton, Lesley Banister, Sandra Demchuk, Peter Musil, Dan Sparks and Samantha McConnery were appointed.
CCHC executive director Dougal Forteath presented CCHC’s 2017 and 2018 proposed budgets to council at the meeting.
As an arms length corporation, the sole shareholder of CCHC is the Town of Canmore as represented by the mayor and chief administrative officer at the AGM.
The two shareholders voted in support of the presented budget, which will also come in front of council for presentation during its upcoming finance committee budget deliberation process.
The budget requests $470,000 from the Town of Canmore for next year. In 2016, CCHC requested an allocation of $550,000 from the municipality for its operating budget. The annual requisition covers general expenses of the organization on a yearly basis, including $365,177 budgeted for salaries and benefits in 2017.
The change next year is a result of a reduction in staff of $75,000 by the elimination of a project manager and communications position, as well as a $5,000 savings from a budgeted server replacement that is no longer required because the municipality is providing CCHC with one of its old ones – according to Forteath.
When it comes to programs run by CCHC, it is actually predicting a surplus for each of the next two years. Between general administration, the Hector rental program, McArthur Place and other programs, the corporation projects a $55,759 surplus in 2017.
Forteath said the organization continues to follow its strategic direction to increase the supply of affordable housing in Canmore for the short, medium and long term, as well as develop policies related to housing and the delivery of CCHC’s own housing program.
The policy work includes a piece on employee housing, which is considered as short-term transitional rental housing. It is an area CCHC identified as a community priority, but where the Town of Canmore is taking the leadership role instead by moving forward with a process to develop land along Palliser Trail as employee housing.
“We are working closely with (the municipality) and started on a new employee housing program,” Forteath said.
CCHC and the Town are working on the policy related to employee housing for council’s consideration in early 2017.
CCHC is taking the lead role in developing the old daycare lands on 17th Street in Canmore. A request for expressions of interest process has been initiated to find private sector partners to develop the property. Forteath said the model being considered for the site is CCHC’s home ownership program – perpetually affordable housing (PAH). The goal of the project is to develop the municipally-owned lands to provide more affordable home ownership opportunities for families in the community.
The program itself – both the home ownership side and the rental side – will be reviewed in 2017 to ensure it is meeting the needs of the community as it was intended to – according to the annual report presented at the AGM.
The newest perpetually affordable housing rental project developed by CCHC, MacArthur Place, is doing well, according to CCHC’s executive director. As of Nov. 1, he said, the rental project has 30 of 32 available units occupied. They hope phase two will see residents moving into it – and the final 16 units created by the project – in early 2017.
