A northern real estate developer wants to install a facility that would house hundreds of workers expected to arrive in Yellowknife with few housing options.
Sandra McDaniel, a representative of Homes North Ltd, made the pitch to city councillors on Monday night.
“There are times when things just seem to line up and to make sense, and we believe that this is one of those times,” she said.
“The city is in great need of worker accommodation to meet present and upcoming demand, and to avoid the necessity of having to use hotel rooms and housing within the city, which affects other industries and the housing availability of the public.”
McDaniel pointed to remediation of the Giant Mine site, which is expected to require hundreds of workers at a time and take until 2038 to be complete.
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She said 200 new rooms are already needed to house workers in the city and another 200 will be needed by the 2024-25 winter season.
McDaniel said the accommodation facility, designed to house around 450 people, should be located as close to the workplace as possible, circumventing the downtown, with parking and space for buses to turn around. She said the lot on Deh Cho Boulevard, which spans 10.9 acres, fits the bill.
McDaniel said work has been done on the lot so it is “ready to contribute to the city,” adding the facility would not be permanent, so the land could be repurposed when it is no longer needed.
The lot will, however, need to be rezoned by the city before the accommodation can be installed.
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Mayor Rebecca Alty said an analysis and recommendation by city staff is needed before councillors can decide whether to allow the rezoning. She encouraged Homes North to keep the city updated on the project.
“I know it can kind-of feel like the chicken and egg – ‘I’m going to put all this work in, will council support it?’ – but without that work, we won’t be able to say whether we can support it,” she said.
Earlier this year, efforts began to allow for a workers’ accommodation facility in Kam Lake. Work camps and worker accommodation are different things under Yellowknife’s community plan, and work camps currently aren’t permitted.
A work camp is defined as a “temporary and moveable structure built to accommodate workers for a specific project or job.” Camps are usually “located in remote areas with little access to permanent dwellings,” according to the community plan.
Worker accommodation, however, is allowed in some areas of the city. That kind of facility is defined as “constructed to provide housing for workers in the form of complete dwelling units, typically for related business for an appropriate project, term or seasonal purpose.”
