Bow Island receives cash injection from feds to help fast track housing construction

Mayor Gordon Reynolds said this is welcome news as the vacancy rate in the community is currently very low and housing is needed.

“”We have very few houses for sale and very, very little rental accommodation,” Reynolds said.

“We have lots of jobs available in Bow Island, and we have people that are commuting some good distances,” he added.

“Then there’s job vacancies, because some of our employers can’t fill those jobs, and that’s both in the public sector and the private sector as well.”

A variety of initiatives will be announced by the town including a formal spending plan for the funding incentive programs, modernization of land use bylaws and more residential lots.

The town has set a target of 60 permitted units, 51 of which must be missing middle housing units, which includes duplexes, multi-unit homes, secondary suites and low-rise apartment buildings.

“Initial thing we’re doing is updating our land use bylaw, to allow for some better zoning, some new types of zoning to facilitate this higher density housing, we’re also looking at allowing garden suites and secondary suites that are currently not regulated here,” Reynolds said.

“That may be an option to help fill some of those gaps, and streamlining our development process, which is actually pretty quick here as it is, but anything we can do to make it easier for the developers for the builders.”

Reynolds said 19 acres of vacant land on the west side of Bow Island will be the focused area for this development.

“There is an opportunity for developers to come into small communities that have access to these funds,” Reynolds said.

“Our goal is to make the properties affordable for those developers, which hopefully translates to affordable housing, or attainable housing for the renters or buyers of those units.”

The underground infrastructure for the lots is on order and will be installed this spring.

Reynolds said there is strong interest already from a number of local builders.

by Jesse Gill

Bow Island receives cash injection from feds to help fast track housing construction

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