The Town of Hay River is the latest NWT community to receive money from a national housing accelerator fund to help clear the way for more developments.
Yellowknife received $8.4 million from the same Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation program earlier this week.
On Friday, Hay River said it would receive $2 million over three years with a “housing supply growth target of 30 permitted housing units over that period of time.”
The fund is unusual in that the money is not directly assigned to construction of homes, but instead to the world that surrounds home-building: bylaws, policies, incentives and programs that developers must follow or can tap into.
The Town of Hay River said the funding would allow it to incentivize the development of idle land “with an emphasis on the development of multi-unit residential,” and amend bylaws and policies to support residential development “in the downtown core.”
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The town will also use some of the money to incorporate updated flood-plain mapping in its approach to new housing developments. The mapping has been a project since the town flooded in 2022.
The fund will also support “development of a disincentive program to ensure that no vacant units or underdeveloped/idle lands remain within the municipal boundaries.”
“This is an important next step to advance key housing initiatives identified in our community strategic housing plan,” Mayor Kandis Jameson was quoted as saying.
The town said more information about “incentive opportunities” will be released in the coming months.
