Trends “concerning” where rental prices are going in Cold Lake as one-bedrooms jump 45%

If trends remain, and an influx of skilled workers anticipated for arrivals in the not-too-distant future, city council is putting a priority on understanding their housing situation. 

Rental prices are going up in Cold Lake, particularly with one-bedroom apartments, which has seen a significant jump in cost recently. 

Cold Lake city staff did an analysis of rental prices, getting a broad view of their supply and what renters costs are ahead of anticipated booms of transient workers in the next few years. 

Mayor Craig Copeland describes it as soul searching and trying to get a better grasp of the city’s rental landscape. 

“We’re just trying to get ahead of what we anticipate being an issue in 2025 to 2028, or longer, when the F-35 construction workers come into the community, with carbon capture construction workers coming in here,” Copeland said on The Morning After. 

Of note, there was a 45 per cent increase in rental rates for one-bedroom properties from 2022 to 2023, on average jumping from $870 to $1,258. 

This is higher than the average of a two-bedroom, which according to the analysis, costs $1,175 on average. A three-bedroom jumped roughly $250 from 2022 to 2023, at $1,447 on average. 

City staff reason this saying it’s a supply and demand issue. 

Using a story published in early January by Lakeland Today, the City of Cold Lake’s two-bedroom average of $1,175 is below the provincial average of $1,550. 

These prices are still well below what was seen in the peak of pricing in 2014, before a sharp decline in 2015 occurred. 

“Certainly, some of them will be in hotels, where we definitely got the capacity with a hotel market, but not everybody wants to go in hotels,” said Copeland. 

Data was collected for 2010-2021 from the Government of Alberta’s Average Residential Rent online dataset, and data for 2022-2023 was collected manually by calculating the average rental costs for properties as advertised on realtor websites. 

‘It is a bit concerning’

At last Tuesday’s corporate priorities meeting, council heard the presentation from their economic development officer, as well as the forecast ahead. 

Without any market corrections or interventions, this could mean by 2030 (90th percentile), a one-bedroom could cost $3,817, a two-bedroom $2,937, and a three-bedroom $4,976. 

However, none of the specifically listed data includes figures for whether utilities or other amenities are factored into those prices.

“It is a bit concerning when I look at those and see those trends is where they’re going,” said councillor Chris Vining during the meeting. “Those income levels are not going to match with where rents are and where things are going to be affordable.”

CAO Kevin Nagoya said also wasn’t included was vacancy rates during these years, or currently.

“I think some further discussion or analysis based on his council’s priority, and one of these is housing from your last strategic priority session, and an outcome of that was kind of some analysis on rental, but I think a piece of that is still vacancy within the community,” he said.

Mayor Craig Copeland said they may have to look at building more.

“There’s a couple of builders that have first right of refusal, and some lots right now that they could put up within a year or so, multi-family apartments. And so if that rate starts to rise, where it’s going to be economical, viable for them, you will probably see some more multi-family built in Cold Lake. But right now, there’s no permits out there that I’m aware of, for the big apartments.”