Yellowknife mayor defends housing fund targeted by Conservatives

If elected, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has said he’ll cut the federal Housing Accelerator Fund – a program that recently committed $8.4 million to the City of Yellowknife.

Poilievre has said the program is too bureaucratic. It doesn’t directly fund the construction of new homes but instead gives communities money to make people more likely to build housing, for example by offering incentives to developers or creating better policies.

The Conservatives have said scrapping the fund would help pay for their plan to eliminate GST from the sale of any newly built home worth less than $1 million.

But the Liberal government has begun a campaign to actively defend the Housing Accelerator Fund, even writing to local governments that received funding through the program to request messages of support.

“These funds went to your community based on your ambitious commitments that will make it easier and faster to build homes,” reads a letter to mayors from housing minister Sean Fraser’s office.

“I would also encourage you to take this opportunity to inform members of your community about the impact this cut would have to your plans to build more homes.”

Neither Fraser nor Poilievre were made available for interview for this article.

Mayor of Yellowknife Rebecca Alty says the city received that letter in late October. She sent her reply last week, outlining Yellowknife’s urgent need for this kind of program.

“We just outlined what we are proposing to do with the funding and that it is important funding,” Alty told Cabin Radio this week.

“We’re a small municipality, budgets are tight. To be able to do the list of activities, we wouldn’t be able to do it without the funding.

“We took a lot of time to develop our application and that would be lost. We spent time to develop our bylaws, that would be lost. We put a lot of time and effort in and to pivot in a new direction just feels like we’re wasting time in the midst of a housing crisis.”

According to Alty, Yellowknife is using the funding to provide development incentives, increase staffing to cut down delays, and prepare more land for development.

Even half of the funding would double the growth of new housing developments, according to the city’s housing projections. Only last month, a new housing needs assessment for Yellowknife projected an extra 1,060 households will be required by 2035 and called for the construction of hundreds more two, three and four-bed units.

“Thanks to this funding, we are able to enhance the incentives to build housing in Yellowknife and without the funding we would have to scale back the incentives,” Alty said.

“$8 million would be a 21-percent tax increase if we had to fund this from taxes, which clearly we wouldn’t do. It just means these projects don’t happen over four years, they end up happening over many more years.”

Housing spectrum

To address various forms of housing need – known as the housing spectrum – Alty said the city plans to roll out a range of grants.

Money for not-for-profits will fund affordable housing projects. A secondary dwelling grant will help people add units to their home, Alty said.

Without adequate housing for seasonal or contract workers, Alty says the local economy and healthcare system takes a hit, too. This ultimately has a “big impact” on the community at large.

Meanwhile, Alty says an ongoing challenge is securing the funds to maintain these units once they’re built. She says any organization that builds housing for residents experiencing homelessness will likely have to find separate funding to maintain them.

Alty says she hopes to see multi-year funding down the line that is flexible and consistent, particularly for non-market housing, affordable housing, and transitional housing to support residents in need.

“That’s the benefit of not just saying we have a housing problem but actually diving in and saying what exactly is that housing problem,” Alty said. “We’ve got to try a lot of different things to increase the housing supply.”

Progress on housing plan

The city hired a manager in October to oversee projects that involve the Housing Accelerator Fund.

Alty said a meeting on Monday will include discussion of the city’s development incentive bylaw, which is expected to draw on some of that cash.

“It is about giving a few extra dollars to add more housing to the market,” said Alty.

By the end of 2025, Alty expects the city will have received $7 million of the $8.4-million agreement.

Once the bylaw is approved, the mayor said the city can “can get the money out the door” for housing projects as early as the new year.

Should the federal program be cut before all the funds are delivered, Alty says the city would need to scale back services and grants. She believes that could, in turn, slow the housing market.

“There would be the legal discussion that would have to happen if they do cancel the program,” said Alty.

“We really hope the funding continues because we do think it is an opportunity to provide those incentives and increase our capacity to process applications that we’re receiving for housing.”