City keeps eye on illegal housing

The city of Iqaluit plans to clamp down on illegal housing units in industrial zones.
The move is prompted by worries that, in a few years, the city might run out of industrial-use land.

This summer the city conducted a survey of the North 40 and West 40 industrial zones and identified at least a dozen illegal apartments. City officials also saw children playing among scrap metal and other old construction materials, prompting safety concerns.

Michele Bertol, the city’s director of planning and lands, presented a plan that would see the buildings brought into line with zoning regulations in the next two years.

But landlords of units in the North 40 and West 40 areas gave Iqaluit councilors an earful about these plans during a recent committee of the whole meeting.

They say evicting construction workers and low-income families who live in the homes will only worsen homelessness and the lack of affordable housing.

Glenda Zucker from Northern Properties agrees rules should eventually be enforced, but she wants five years before they come into effect. By then, the rental contracts for four units inside a building in an industrial area will have expired.

Her company has owned the building for 20 years. Lack of affordable housing in town means they’ve never had trouble renting the units inside it, she said. Two families currently live there.

“Hopefully in five years there will be a real housing market here to absorb the impact,” she said in an interview.

Others hope to receive an exemption from the rules. Narwhal Plumbing began to renovate their building, which holds three staff housing units this summer, with plans to replace a now-unused former shop space with another unit for summer workers.

But that would change the building to residential use. Now the former shop space sits half-renovated, and Renault Sage wonders what will happen to it.
“I don’t want to rock the boat,” he said, explaining he didn’t want to upset council.

But if he needs to rent more apartments to house workers, that will raise the cost of doing business. And that extra cost will likely be passed down to customers, he said.

The committee of a whole held off making any decision until a later date.