After years spent trying to develop a working policy that will see employee housing developed in Canmore, council is considering charging commercial taxpayers extra.
Council was asked last month to provide direction to administration to develop an assessment-based policy for the provision of employee housing.
Employee housing can take different forms, including a charge to development permits for projects creating additional commercial space to ensure those filling jobs created with it have a home.
Originally, Canmore had developed an extensive policy proposal to go down that road and included it as part of the roll out of its Land Use Bylaw.
However, with first reading of the bylaw the policy had disappeared as council and administration decided to pursue an assessment-based approach instead.
Manager of planning Gary Buxton said to move forward any further with the proposal a clear official direction from council is needed.
“There is a significant amount of work if we proceed in this direction,” Buxton said. “In principle, this policy will be to create a reserve fund for development sometime in the future.”
The questions the policy needs to answer is how much money needs to be collected and from where.
He suggested the tax increase should be on commercial properties only because an added levy for perpetually affordable housing (PAH) is already charged to residential taxpayers.
Buxton added areas that need to be addressed in the policy include how employee housing set out as a requirement in Spring Creek Mountain Village, Three Sisters Mountain Village and Silvertip would fit into the overall program.
Also, the fact that some employers are already formally or informally providing employee housing – how would that fit into the policy, asked Buxton.
Councillor John Borrowman expressed concern the request for direction puts the cart before the horse.
“We are saying we will collect money before we discuss how it will be spent,” Borrowman said.
He pointed to a proposal by Ontario company StaffRes several years ago that tried to develop employee housing in Canmore, but found a lack of demand for the project.
Coun. Jim Ridley said he feels the community in general benefits from employee housing and everyone should contribute, not just commercial taxpayers.
Coun. Hans Helder questioned why the municipality is working on the policy and not Canmore Community Housing Corporation.
“Aren’t we just talking about another form of affordable housing?” Helder said.
Coun. Joanna McCallum said while the need may not be acute now, working on the policy and getting a program in place allows the Town to be proactive when the problem arises again.
“We may not have a housing crisis right now for employees, but we could have one in a few years,” she said. “This is just the very beginning, (the policy) could look very different once administration brings it back… we do not need to get too hung up on the details yet.”
Mayor Ron Casey said the details of what a policy would look like were not up for discussion.
Casey said employee housing has always been separate from PAH because it is short term and seasonal and needs to involve the business community in that discussion.
The mayor said there needs to be a contribution from the business community because employee housing benefits its employees.
Borrowman successfully amended the motion to direct administration to work with CCHC on the policy.
