Iqaluit council forgets the public interest

In what the chairman of its development committee, Keith Irving, calls a “landmark” decision, Iqaluit city council has said no to a proposal that would have created 48 new housing units, along with more office and commercial space.

A brave decision, to be sure. But was it a responsible decision? In answering that question, there’s only one benchmark that matters: the public interest.

That includes not only the interests of Iqaluit’s public, but the interests of Nunavut’s public. As capital of Nunavut, Iqaluit is a platform from which numerous vital services are performed on behalf of all Nunavut residents. So any matter that affects the government’s ability to serve Nunavut from Iqaluit is of concern to all Nunavummiut.

The first issue Nunavut residents should consider is Iqaluit’s severe shortage of rental housing. Because of it, the territorial government can’t supply accommodation with the many vacant positions it’s advertising in Iqaluit. It’s an indisputable fact that Iqaluit’s housing shortage is obstructing the growth of a properly functioning territorial government. This hurts all Nunavut residents more or less equally.

It’s also obstructing business growth and job creation. No new business is likely to start up, and no established business is likely to expand if there’s no housing for new employees. With a real unemployment rate that hovers around 17 per cent, Iqaluit needs more, not less, economic development.

The housing shortage not only helps to keep people unemployed. It also makes people sick. Overcrowded living conditions are directly linked to the spread of crippling respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis and RSV. With their undeveloped immune systems, children are more vulnerable to these infections than any others. The cost to the health-care system is staggering. The human cost is incalculable.

Given this context, is it in the best interests of the people of Nunavut for the City of Iqaluit to pass up a chance to add 48 units to Iqaluit’s housing supply?

Another issue the people of Nunavut must consider is that the City of Iqaluit wants more of the Nunavut government’s money, in the form of grants to help pay for road paving, water and sewage infrastructure, and garbage disposal. In addition, the City of Iqaluit is preparing to ask Nunavut for tens of millions of dollars worth of loans, or loan guarantees, to help pay for the same kinds of things over the long term.

There’s no doubt that Iqaluit needs this help. But is Iqaluit doing enough to help itself? Unlike all other community governments in Nunavut, the City of Iqaluit gets a large proportion of its revenue from the taxation of private property. As the amount of private property grows, so does the amount of revenue available to spend on municipal services. The 48-unit development that the city turned down could have contributed many thousands of new tax dollars to the municipality every year.

Given this context, is it in the best interests of the people of Nunavut for their government to lend, or give, money to a municipal council that deliberately restricts the growth of its tax base?

A third factor is the cost of growth, including the environmental cost. Some Iqaluit residents have complained, not unreasonably, about sprawling subdivisions that have blanketed the hills to the south of the city’s older section. These areas are serviced by expensive water and sewage lines, the cost of which is passed on to homeowners and developers in the form of higher lot lease prices.

A recent consultant’s study recommends the city concentrate more development in areas already serviced by water and sewer lines — to reduce the need to build new ones. The 48-unit development that the city rejected was that kind of project. It would have been located in an area already served by water and sewer lines, and would have made more efficient use of them.

Given this context, is it in the best interests of the people of Iqaluit for city council to reject common-sense advice supplied by expensive consultants?

But what about the legitimate concerns of those Iqaluit residents who complain that too many of Iqaluit’s major buildings are ugly and badly placed? It’s certainly valid to say that Iqaluit has made many bad planning decisions over the years.

No one on city council, however, has made any attempt to define or describe what ought to be deemed acceptable. They’ve told us they don’t like buildings that look like boxes, but they haven’t said anything intelligible about what they do like.

When you make a structure with four walls, a roof and a floor, you end up with a “box.” Qammaqs are shaped like boxes, more or less. So are the two buildings that stand across the street from the lot where Ninety North proposed to construct its 48-unit development.

But if a “box” is not acceptable, then what is? Geodesic domes? Egyptian pyramids?

Unless the city specifies what shapes and what designs and what materials are desirable, no developer will dare risk money on proposals that could be rejected on the basis of subjective aesthetic whims and other arbitrary prejudices.

Pretentious art-school gibberish about “contours” and “legibility” provide no guidance. The city must define what it means, in language that actually means something. If it can’t do that, then such considerations should not be part of any planning bylaw.

Besides, even if you accept the validity of city council’s concern about the appearance of Iqaluit’s downtown, they’ve expressed this concern in a curious way.

In effect, they’ve decided that an old snowmobile repair shop, a renovated trailer and a burned-out pool hall have more aesthetic appeal than a new apartment building. Since no one else is likely to dare make a development proposal for that assemblage of land for some time to come, those structures will probably sit there for years.

The question, then, answers itself.

On balance, Iqaluit’s city council gave too much weight to the legitimate issue of aesthetics, and no weight at all to Nunavut’s social and economic needs.

Iqaluit city council’s decision to reject a 48-unit apartment-office building on land assembled in front of the Nunavut legislature is, therefore, not in the public interest.

JB