Coming Up: March 22
Council meets on Monday. The agenda includes:
Delegations and Letters
Affordable Housing Action Plan
Economic Recovery Training Grants
Avondale Area Redevelopment Plan
Following is more information and my take on agenda items.
As always, any mistakes or opinions belong to me and me alone, not to Council or City staff.
While I express my current views below, I work hard to go into meetings ready to listen and with an open mind. I learn new information and participate in debate. This always informs, and sometimes changes, how I vote on issues.
If you would like to watch the meeting or read any of its supporting material for yourself, you can do so by clicking here. The City will post the highlights of Council’s decisions here.
DELEGATIONS AND LETTERS
During our meeting on Monday, Council will be hearing from a number of individuals and organisations through delegations and letters. Topics being raised include:
Christmas in July: a request to proclaim July 24th as “Christmas in July” in order to support a fundraiser for Big Brothers & Big Sisters
Maskwa Medical Centre: A request to support the development of a business plan for a medical centre modeled after the Mayo Clinic
Hospital Foundation Road Naming: The Hospital Foundation is thanking Council for authorizing it to auction off naming rights to roads leading into the local hospitals
Organ Donation: a request to recognize April 7th as “Green Shirt Day” in support of Organ Donor Awareness Month and in memory of Logan Boulet (a young man who perished in the Humboldt Broncos tragedy and who donated his organs to save 6 lives)
Affordable Housing Action plan
Housing has been a priority for Council. Effort is underway to make sure that every household in Grande Prairie has an affordable place to live.
An individual or family is considered to be in “affordable housing” if they can spend 30% or less of their pre-tax income to obtain a place to live that is 1) in reasonable repair, and 2) has enough rooms for the entire household to have age appropriate privacy.
In Grande Prairie, there are approximately 2500 households unable to find Affordable Housing (source).
On Monday, Council will be considering a number of steps to advance Affordable Housing in the City. These are:
Making up for slashed provincial funding. The Grande Spirit Foundation operates a Rent Supplement program which is provincially funded. It has 250 people on its waitlist, despite not accepting new applicants since 2019. Recently, the provincial government slashed its funding by 25%. It is recommended that Council allocate $650,000 in 2021 and again in 2022 to make up for this provincial cut. This would come from money Council had previously set aside to advance new Affordable Housing initiatives. By 2023, there is hope that federal funding would be in place to make up for provincial reductions. However, the intention of that federal funding is also to advance new initiatives. Municipalities and the feds are having to put their money towards picking up provincial cuts rather than making new progress in our communities.
Readying City land for development. The City owns land in Smith set aside for social housing initiatives. This summer, utility services will be built into the land. The City is also building a low cost recreation centre on this land to complement future development. But before any housing can get built, Geotechnical, Traffic Impact, and Environmental assessments are required. It is recommended that $100,000 be designated towards these assessments. This money would come from the Public Housing Reserve.
Seed Funding for a Continuing Care project. Within the City, there is an estimated need for 150 more Continuing Care beds for people with high medical needs. The Grande Spirit foundation is working on a proposal to access part of $500,000,000 that has been set aside by the province to expand Continuing Care capacity. It is recommended that Council allocate $150,000 from the Public Housing Reserve to develop this proposal.
Transfer Social Housing Units to Grande Spirit Foundation. The City owns 19 social housing homes which are managed by Grande Spirit Foundation. There is no debt on these homes. It is recommended that Council transfer ownership of them to Grande Spirit. This would allow the Foundation to leverage the value of these homes to access financing for new or more appropriate accommodations.
Provide consulting services to other organisations. It is recommended that Council direct Administration to share its internal knowledge about Affordable Housing and funding streams with private and non-profit hoping to develop future projects.
Revise the Housing Needs Assessment and Affordable Housing Strategy. Over the course of this Council term, significant work has been put into inventorying housing needs in our community and developing strategies to meet them. However, COVID-19 has dramatically changed the landscape of housing need. Additionally, new data will be available following the 2021 Federal Census. It is recommended that our Assessment and Strategy be revised based on new information.
I intend to support all of these recommendations. They’ll let us make some progress, while preventing provincial cuts from creating more households with housing need in our community.
At the same time: there will still be thousands of Grande Prairie households unable to secure Affordable Housing. There is a lot of work to go. When the revised Needs Assessment and Housing Strategy are presented to Council, I hope that it will be prepared to make significant investment into securing adequate and affordable housing for our residents.
Economic Recovery training grant
COVID-19 has created significant challenges for local small businesses. Council has initiated a number of initiatives geared towards helping businesses navigate these tough times. Now the Economic Development Advisory Committee is proposing a new one: a Training Grant.
This grant would be used to help businesses upskill existing employees and bring support functions in-house. It would have two tiers:
25% of costs for programs over $300, to a maximum of $2,500 per business. This is meant to support programs eligible for the Canada-Alberta Job Grant, which covers up to 66% of the training cost for an employer. By accessing the City grant, employers would only be responsible for 9% of the cost.
50% of the costs for programs under $300, to a maximum of $1,250 per business. This is meant to support programs not eligible for the Canada-Alberta Job Grant, such as pro-serve or individual continuing education courses.
Council has not yet received information about this proposal beyond a three page report. I still need to learn more and have an opportunity to ask questions before I’ll know where I land on this.
AVONDALE AREA REDEVELOPMENT PLAN (ARP)
In 2023, the new Composite High School will be complete and the old building will be demolished. At the same time, part or all of the old Leisure Centre will be demolished. This means that the City needs to make plans for what to do with the land. For that reason, an Avondale Area Redevelopment Plan (Avondale ARP) is being considered by Council. You can read it here.
There are four primary goals in this ARP:
Protect public open space and the environment
Enhance vehicle and pedestrian transportation
Accommodate a new indoor recreation facility for the north side of the City
Support infill development in the long-term
This plan contemplates a number of decisions, including investments in trees, roads, paths, storm sewers, and utilities. However, the parts of it with the highest degree of resident interest involve land use planning.
In the short term, the ARP calls for the Leisure Centre’s indoor field to be preserved and for the Composite High School to be replaced with outdoor sports fields. Some of the existing school parking would be preserved to serve the site. Here is a map from the ARP:
In the Medium Term, the City owned indoor field and the Football Association indoor facility will come to the end of their useful lives. At that time, it is proposed that they be replaced by and outdoor field and a new indoor recreation facility be built on the South East corner of the land.
In several decades, the Peace Wapiti Academy building will come to the end of its useful life. At that time, it is proposed that the North East portion of this land be used for medium density housing (able to accommodate ~320 people) and a small commercial node. Dewit Drive would also be punched through to 116th Ave so that new traffic would not need to go through Avondale.
I support the medium and long term plans. I appreciate that they prioritize preserving both indoor and outdoor recreation on this land. It is important to have recreation facilities in place for the high schools, neighborhood, and entire north end of Grande Prairie.
I know some have concerns about the medium density residential land in the long term plan. But we won’t need more recreation space here as other recreational land comes online in new developments in the North East and North West corners of the City. So it makes sense to allow more people to live in this neighbourhood (I’d especially love to see work go towards senior housing in the ASP area). And with the extension of Dewitt Drive to 116th Ave, this development won’t be anymore impactful on Avondale than Peace Wapiti Academy currently is.
So I am supportive of the medium and long term plans.
However, I’m struggling with support of the short term plan. The problem with it: partial demolition of a building is more expensive than full demolition. Preserving the indoor field component of the Leisure Centre will cost over $1,000,000 more than demolishing the whole thing. And the Football Association building is past its designed life, leaving it in need of significant investment to maintain. I wonder if the money being put into these old buildings would be better spent creating an all new building.
I’ll likely be supporting the ARP as presented. However, I also intend to ask Council to direct administration to come forward with anticipated costs to preserve the existing indoor recreation facilities and estimated remaining life these buildings will have. If we have this information, we can decide whether to implement the short term plan or move sooner to the medium term plan.
I’ll also be noting that the ARP proposes some infrastructure work (such as planting trees, re-aligning 112 Ave, and upgrading storm water service) that is not in our current capital plan. I hope to see Council direct administration to bring forward funding recommendations for Avondale ARP implementation.
That’s what is on our agenda for Monday. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
You can comment below. Or, you can contact me at dbressey@cityofgp.com or 780-402-4166. I'm happy to talk online or over the phone. I'm also always willing to setup a time to meet for coffee.
We also always have great conversation in the GP Round Table group on Facebook.
After Council meeting, you will be able to find highlights posted by the City here.
Thanks for reading!
-Dylan