Yellowknife city councillors have formally rejected a bid to open a work camp in the Engle Business District despite a last-ditch plea from companies involved.
City staff and councillors previously told Homes North and its contractor, Stantec, that the location of its proposed camp, in an industrial area near the city’s airport and fuel storage facilities, was too unsafe.
At a meeting earlier in January, council added that a thorough community plan update – designed in part to make the process of establishing a work camp more straightforward – is on the way in the next 12 to 18 months, but hasn’t happened yet.
Before a final vote on the matter at a Monday council meeting, representatives of Homes North, Stantec and GRC Camp Services all tried to convince council to change their approach.
Homes North sought temporary approval of three to four years, saying that would be enough time to “get things rolling” and then seek further permissions from City Hall if needed.
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Stantec sought to calm some of the safety concerns city council and staff had earlier voiced, such as how an evacuation might be handled or a fire fought at a 400-person camp in the Engle Business District, which is fairly far from Yellowknife’s lone fire hall and in an area without piped water.
“There will be a detailed safety management plan for the camp. There’ll be a fire suppression system, there’ll be a holding tank for water, for firefighting,” said Stantec’s Zoe Morrison, making the case.
Justin Skinner – whose firm, GRC, already operates a camp off Utsingi Drive in Yellowknife’s Kam Lake – said a camp would be “safe, reliable and affordable” and “the best option to assist the growth of the city,” which is facing a housing shortage. Hundreds of people needing accommodation in the city are workers coming in to help with projects like the Giant Mine remediation.
Military expansion is a factor
Despite the companies’ presentations, council concluded updating the community plan first – without granting Homes North any kind of exception to the current rules – was the best way forward.
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“I do want to have that more holistic discussion about where we should allow work camps within our community boundary, which is set to begin soon with the community plan review,” said Mayor Rebecca Alty as council unanimously voted not to adopt amendments to the existing plan that would have allowed the Engle work camp to go ahead.
Alty said she also wanted more time to discuss with the military what kinds of land they might require for expansion in Yellowknife.
The federal government has published a national defence plan that calls for significant investment in some northern communities, and municipalities are now jockeying to be the chosen locations. Yellowknife already has a large military presence by northern standards and some DND facilities are located in the vicinity of the proposed Engle work camp, near the city’s airport.
“The military has conditions about where they’ll allow certain things, so I want to make sure that we don’t limit the opportunity to expand the military presence in Yellowknife,” said Alty.
“It could be a good community opportunity, particularly for our economy … so I do want to make sure we take into consideration any of their planning needs and constraints.”
Alty acknowledged council’s decision would be “frustrating for the proponent.”
Deputy mayor Garett Cochrane said he hoped Homes North would “continue to participate” as the community plan is updated over the next year, “because there will be more viable land for this exact kind of operation.”
“This is just not going to be that,” he concluded.
