The Alberta Department of Municipal Affairs has legislation that could make it easier for municipalities and social housing authorities to tackle projects.
The Honourable Doug Griffiths, Minister of Municipal Affairs was in Drumheller on Friday, October 25 to meet with the Drumheller Housing Administration as well as Mayor Terry Yemen and Councillor Jay Garbutt, who is a Member of the Housing Authority. Minister Griffiths was also joined by MLA for Calgary-Fort Wayne Cao, MLA for Edmonton Gold Bar David Dorward and MLA for Edmonton Riverview and Chief Government Whip Steven Young.
The Drumheller Housing Administration had a number of visitors last Friday when Alberta Government MLAs came through to talk about some changes that affect Housing Authorities. At the meeting were (l-r) councillor Jay Garbutt, MLA David Doward, Minister of Municipal Affairs Doug Griffiths, Mayor Terry Yemen, MLA Steven Young, MLA Wayne Cao, Bob Sheddy of the Drumheller Housing Administration and CAO Ray Romanetz.
Minister Griffiths said their visit has been a longtime coming following the flooding events of last spring, and this was one of the reasons for his visit. The other was to talk to housing authorities about some of the changes they are looking at.
Minister Griffiths explains that currently projects undertaken by housing authorities put pressure on the whole municipality’s borrowing ability.
“When a housing authority in a municipality wants to build affordable housing or senior housing, whatever their mandate is, they have to go through the municipality which has to borrow it on their behalf from the Capital Finance Authority,” explained Griffiths. “Now we have legislation that will separate that and we are working on the regulation. So now a housing authority will be able to borrow money directly from the Alberta Social Housing Corporation at the same interest rate. That way it won’t limit the borrowing capacity of the municipality.”
This means that debt from housing projects won’t count against a municipality’s borrowing limits.
“In lots of municipalities, especially the small ones, they have to ask the question, ‘do we build a seniors complex, or affordable housing, or do we fix the arena or pave the streets?’ It becomes a challenge. So just by peeling the housing out we can still do these projects in communities and still leave the municipalities with their tasks at hand,” said Griffiths.
The Drumheller Housing Administration manages Sandstone Manor as well as community housing units in the Huntington Hills and Greentree areas.
Jay Garbutt of the Drumheller Housing Administration says currently there are no plans right now for expansion or renovation, owing to cuts to new housing projects by the province. It recently completed a number of renovations making many of the units more efficient, thanks to grants from the federal government.
The provincial delegation also met with the Drumheller Kinsmen to present a $40,000 grant to build a new playground at Greentree Park. For more details, see Page 19 of this edition of The Drumheller Mail.
