A Canmore hotel owner is hoping to move forward with developing a rental apartment building in the community – making it the first project of its kind in over two decades.
Coast Hotel and owner Michael Hannan requested a fee waiver from council this week to make its development applications for rezoning, subdivision and amendment of the Bow Valley Trail area redevelopment plan.
Council approved the $12,000 waiver in fees for the three separate applications after manager of planning Alaric Fish presented the request at Tuesday night’s (Jan. 5) meeting.
Fish said it is the first privately developed apartment rental building to be proposed in the community for over 20 years, with the last rental units in particular being purpose built by Canmore Community Housing Corporation – which is owned by the municipality.
“There has not been rental housing built in Canmore in some time,” said Fish, other than the 60-unit Hector perpetually affordable housing CCHC built six years ago. “I suspect it has been 25 years since we have seen a pure residential rental building built by the private sector.
“Administration is supportive of the fee waiver as there is no direct cost to the Town.”
The $12,000 fee waiver for the applications, said Fish, would only mean a loss of permit revenues for his department, as staff can do the work. He also indicated owners of the land are hoping to realize more incentives for building 90 rental units as the process moves along.
“To make the project economically viable they feel some incentives are required to make the numbers pencil out; so at this point what we are considering is waiver of the fees for subdivision rezoning and a potential area redevelopment plan amendment,” Fish said.
However, he added, the issue of fairness does come up when considering the fee waiver, as other private developers interested in providing rental housing have approached the municipality. He said this proposal, though, is the most advanced in the process and a 90-unit rental apartment building is “exciting” for the community.
The prospect of rental housing being added to the community was welcomed by council and Mayor John Borrowman, who said council has said for some time it wants to create an environment where the private sector can be part of Canmore’s affordable housing solution.
“It is good to see the private sector come forward with a proposal that addresses a need we have identified,” Borrowman said.
But having a policy on development incentives for developers proposing to build units to address the lack of affordable rental housing in the community would be preferred, said the mayor, rather than dealing with it on a case-by-case basis.
General manager of municipal infrastructure Michael Fark said it is not currently part of planning and development’s work plan for 2016 to develop that particular policy.
“A policy around incentives for development is not a small issue, it has consequences to be explored and community consultation is needed,” he said, adding a policy would only provide high-level guidance to council and administration. “It is always going to be inherently situational and the application of a policy depends on the situations that come forward.”
Canmore’s draft Municipal Development Plan does include a section on affordable housing and provides direction to council to consider incentives, but what that looks like and specific details would have to be developed in a specific policy and approved by council in the future.
