City of Iqaluit sets up e-permitting to accelerate housing development
Work part of conditions to access $8.8M in Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. money
Mathew Dodds, director of planning and development with the City of Iqaluit (Photo by Daron Letts)
The City of Iqaluit has a few more hoops to jump through in order to receive its second, $2.2-million instalment of housing money from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.
Mathew Dodds, the city’s director of planning and development, gave an update Thursday to Iqaluit’s planning and development committee on what the city is doing to meet contribution agreement obligations with the corporation.
The agreement, struck one year ago, provides for more than $8.8 million over four years.
Council voted in August 2023 to apply for the funding and the city received its first instalment of $2.2 million in December 2023.
The city is required to meet certain housing growth targets, including the approval of 310 units by December 2026 with 54 per cent of them, or 167, classified as affordable housing.
“Given we have three years to accomplish this, we are well on pace and there’s no cause for concern in that,” Dodds said.
“We are confident that we will be able to reach [these milestones] by the end date of the contribution agreement.”
The first round of funding is geared toward administrative and policy work such as reducing parking requirements, increasing building heights in targeted areas, streamlining development application processes, creating a private land development framework, and expanding affordable housing delivery with non-profit providers.
The second instalment will come once the city has demonstrated that it has advanced on meeting these targets, which Dodds forecasted will be achieved in the first quarter of 2025.
“So far, the city is mostly on track, and where we have faced delays in completing the milestones we have made the funder aware and are working on extensions,” according to a report associated with the presentation Dodds made to the committee.
E-permitting, which allows developers to apply for permits online, is one of the milestones to be achieved before the next round of funding. The city soft-launched the program this month and received its first e-permit application last week, Dodds said.
“We think that it’s been user-friendly for the developer and user-friendly for staff, so it’s been positive,” he said.
A zoning bylaw amendment included as one of the milestones the city must achieve also came up as part of the committee meeting.
Members voted to support the amendment, which reduces parking minimums for dwelling units in Iqaluit’s core to one stall per three dwelling units and one visitor space per 15 dwelling units. With that support, the amendment moves to council, which will vote on it at a later date.
The effect of the change, presented to the committee by contract planner Samantha Toffolo, would be to provide developers with a lower parking rate, which should increase housing supply in the most walkable parts of the city.
How can the housing goal be achieved if the city of Iqaluit doesn’t release anymore building lots or subdivisions? On what lots of land are these house to be built?
I guess by reading your statement you do not live here like most contractors…….
There is this thing called “redevelopment” when contractors buy under utilized properties and maximize their sqft and usable space.
More people would build here if we canned this undeserved condescending attitude.
Actually the “condescending” attitude is completely justified. People who don’t live here often don’t have the background to understand how Iqaluit and Nunavut work. What this community needs. Honestly, southern contractors are just looking to make money by applying cookie cutter solutions that would not work for the residents here. I’ve lived in a lot of places, and Iqaluit has very specific challenges, so treating it like Yellowknife, for example, and applying similar planning and building methods wouldn’t work.
When is the last time a home was built by an individual and not a developer?
Angnakak’’s on Jomie court. Rest of them built by caribou cabs or glen Molloy
It was still built by a construction company though.
He built most of it himself actually.
So contractors build just to make a profit. Go figure. That is one of the dumbest statements ever made. If a contractor builds with the goal of breaking even or loosing money they won’t build much. Give your tuque a couple of spins.