Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A highly unusual Municipal and Community Affairs land swap deal has left the City of Yellowknife and the developer a legacy of problems to sort out and contributed to an unnecessary rise in the cost of new housing in Yellowknife.
Recently, MACA took over the former church property on 49th Street and transferred the Lot 501 block of Commissioner’s land adjacent to the North Slave Correction Centre to Homes North via the city. This without MACA seeking a buyer leave from the City of Yellowknife. The developer took on the property in the expectation of creating a residential subdivision according to the improvement requirements of the day. At the time, the city was transitioning to full cost recovery through development conditions.
Two years later the land swap is nearing completion and the city and the developer are still trying to find compromises that would allow an economic development that meets city requirements for sewer and water, roads, trail and park development and power supply. It has been a difficult negotiation, given the city’s need to see the cost of development paid for by purchase funds and the developer’s need for an economic project.
This should never have happened. MACA met its own needs for land without respecting the city’s need to derive revenue from the land to ensure development standards will be met and costs recovered before lands are provided. Then MACA left the two parties to sort out the most crucial and contentious issues. Had MACA dealt with the city in the first place, a land swap might still have been brokered and the costs of development being clearly stated from the outset.
But what’s the biggest tragedy here? The most unfortunate consequences accrue to our residents seeking reasonably priced housing. Our population is falling. People’s inability to find housing is a crippling, chronic drag on the territorial economy.
So what needs to happen now? MACA needs to recognize its responsibility for the situation they helped create and rejoin the discussions towards a compromise solution. We need to finally provide the city with control over unencumbered Commissioner’s lands within its boundaries.
I would support any move by the City of Yellowknife to gain control over the remaining Commissioner’s land within city boundaries to prevent such end runs happening ever again.
I will be asking the MACA Minister questions on this situation. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
