Mayor Brain, Councillor Mirau offer housing response in wake of recent permissive tax exemption decision

Mayor Brain and Councillor Blair Mirau at the July 23rd Council session,
both members of Prince Rupert City Council have taken to Social Media
in recent days to share thoughts on the city's approach to housing issues

A decision to deny a pair of property exemption requests put forward to Prince Rupert City Council at their July 23rd session, has raised a few eyebrows and stoked some controversy on how best to approach the city's housing issues and to answer some of the concern, two members of City Council have taken to Social Media to highlight the City's work on housing to this point.

Both Mayor Lee Brain and Councillor Blair Mirau offered similar notes to the theme last week, the Mayor expanding a bit on Council's decision to deny the Prince Rupert Indigenous Housing Society a property tax exemption for their soon to open housing complex on Park Avenue in the old Anchor Inn.

The Mayor's comments provide additional notes from those of the City Council session of July 23rd, a public meeting setting where no members of Council took up the topic in discussion during the course of the short twenty seven minute get together .

The decision to deny the Prince Rupert Indigenous Housing Society a tax exemption for their  Anchor Inn project comes, despite the fact that two local housing societies (Kaien Senior Citizens and Prince Rupert Senior Citizens Societies) both currently enjoy Permissive Tax Exemptions by the City.

With no discussion from Council members on July 23rd, Council members perhaps missed an opportunity to share why they believe one housing option is deserving of exemptions, as opposed to another.

And more importantly how they as a Council, make such determinations.

As for the checklist from both Mayor Brain and Councillor Mirau, many of those projects listed by the two Council members remain works in progress, or are more directed more towards those outside the scope of those that are in need for affordable housing.

We did an inventory on some of those same proposals back in March and so far, while there has been some progress for a few, there is little change in the status for many of those projects which we reviewed.

The conversion of the Bethel Baptist Church to the Mountain View estates is a housing option which was for the most part designed for executives, and one somewhat outside of the financial resources of those most in need for housing and as of this weekend it continues to feature listings for vacancies.

Mountain View Estates is now available for executives looking for
a residence in the community

The Neptune Inn proposal to provide housing for Senior Citizens at the facility located in the Yellowhead light Industrial park has yet to open its doors, with no indication when that addition to housing stock for Seniors may finally be accepting tenants.

Of some irony, it was the closure of the Neptune for its renovations two years ago, that contributed to part of the current housing crunch in the city, with many of the former tenants, now the focus of those in need for the housing that the still to be build Park Avenue project will provide.

There is still no timeline in view for when the Neptune Inn building
will be opened as a Seniors residence in the community

The Trinity Recovery House was one area where Council moved quickly in support of the proposed development and helped to navigate it through the process from its original introduction to the approval by Council.

That supportive housing project was up and running within months from application to approval.

Council likewise had much praise for the Metlakatla Elders/Seniors Housing proposal for a stretch of Seventh Avenue East at the Old King Edwards School site.

After what appeared to be some site related issues over the last year since that approval, the project has now just entered into its pre-development stage.

Site preparation work is underway for the Mettlakatla Elders/Seniors
residences on the old King Edward School lot between 7th and 8th Avenues East

The forward progress for the Park Avenue housing proposal hailed through  last weeks re-announcement of the plan to develop the 36 unit housing development was clearly welcome news for the community.

However, it should be noted that from all the statements and social media messages of last week, neither the Mayor, Councillor Mirau, or MLA Jennifer Rice observed that the original deadline for the affordable housing proposal was that it would be in operation in March of 2018.

As well, when it comes to the review of progress and success on housing from Mr. Brain and Mr. Mirau, they left a few entries off their checklist of last week.

A compilation that makes for a significant number of the other housing proposals that Council has reviewed, approved and in some cases denied over the last four years.

On the completed side of the ledger was the Van Ardsol Street homes development, which saw four town home like residences created on the West side of the city. However, with a price point in the range of the 500,000 to 600,000 dollar mark, they would seem to be beyond the scope of what most in town would call affordable housing.

Two other high profile approvals also seem stalled at the moment, the Condominium project proposed for the area between Stiles Place and Bill Murray Drive, as well as the Graham Avenue project, which would have delivered more high end housing by the BC Ferries Terminal.

Much as they were in March, both have yet to see much in the way of progress towards adding to the city's housing stock in the near future.

Also still show any signs of progress is the development of a pair of proposed apartment complexes on Prince Rupert Boulevard near where the Drake Crescent complex is located.

There so far is no progress to be seen on a pair of proposed apartment
buildings to be build in the Prince Rupert Bouleverard/Drake Crescent area

One project that had the potential to deliver housing accommodation that may have been more accessible to those with lower incomes was the proposed development of apartment buildings for land owned by School District 52.

That  group of complexes that would have been built on the Kanata School land was abandoned after the developer and Prince Rupert City Council could not come to an agreement on the nature  of how the property would be developed and what amenities the developer was to provide as part of it.

The Kanata School property is back on the market after a previous
developer chose to walk away from its plans for the site

The decision not to move ahead on the Kanata project had a major impact on SD52 which had hoped to make use of the near one million dollars it was to receive for the land, with the School District hoping to reinvest the money into infrastructure items across the District.

The land is once again up for sale, though so far it does not appear that new purchaser has come over the horizon to explore the  prospect of housing development for the east side lot.

The full overview of housing issues in Prince Rupert and across the Northwest can be found from our Housing archive here.

For a look at some of the themes on housing and other discussion points for Prince Rupert City Council see our Council archive page here.


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