Cold Lake considering rental incentive policy for new builds

As concerns about housing and the rental market in the face of expected growth continue to focus the City’s efforts, Council will consider reintroducing an updated Multiunit Rental Housing Incentive Program.

Such a program was introduced in 2013, resulting in 318 new rental units being built in the community before the policy was rescinded in 2017 after the crash in oil prices slowed demand throughout the region.

“In smaller communities, far from large urban centres, it is very difficult to get developers to build multiunit development meant for the rental market,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “We feel it is important to have a good mix of housing options in every community, and developers generally see single detached houses as a safer bet. By providing an incentive for multiunit rentals, we can fill an important gap in our housing supply – that exactly what we achieved in 2013.”

Within the next several years, Council feels that economic activity in the region will lead to significant growth for the City of Cold Lake.

Work to ready 4 Wing Cold Lake for the delivery of the F-35, modernization of the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, an increase in the Canadian Armed Forces personnel and civilian staff required to operate and maintain the new equipment and infrastructure, as well as a large carbon capture project planned in the region, will all bring increased economic opportunity and increased growth.

“The City of Cold Lake has consistently seen steady, manageable growth over the past decade and this increase in economic activity will likely increase the pace of growth substantially,” Copeland said.

“The business community is seeing it – we are fielding a lot of calls from prospective investors, and there are several significant developments in the planning stages. Council has been preparing for this for some time with upgrades to our underground infrastructure – we feel we have positioned the community for growth, but when it comes to building housing supply, we need the private sector to step up and we’ve seen how an incentive program can spur some real activity.”

As proposed, the Multiunit Rental Incentive Program would provide a grant of $10,000 per new dwelling unit to a developer constructing new dwellings with at least four rental units. The following eligibility criteria are also being proposed:

• The site would need to be zoned R3 – Medium Density Residential, R4 – High Density Residential, RMX – Residential Mixed Use, C1 – Downtown Commercial, or LC – Lakeshore Commercial.
• The site must be new construction resulting in new dwelling units.
• The project must remain as a rental property for a minimum of five years from the occupancy date.
• The project must have an approved development permit and building permit issues by the City of Cold Lake prior to the application for inclusion in the incentive program, unless there is clear intent that the permit applications will take place within six months of the grant application.

The proposed policy would distribute the grants on a first-come-first-served basis, and it would also limit the number of grants available to 125 units.

“The details surrounding the exact amount of the grant and the maximum number of grants will be debated by Council, but we do see a housing crunch coming and this is something we want to consider sooner rather than later,” Copeland said. “Providing a good mix of housing options ensures our community remains as open and inclusive as possible. We do not want to see people squeezed out of Cold Lake because of affordability issues. We’ve seen that before, and we are trying to get ahead of it now.”

The draft policy was considered at Council’s Feb. 20, 2024 Corporate Priorities Meeting and will be brought forward to a future council meeting for further discussion before a vote is made.