Last week + regular Council meeting November 18, 2019
Last week
Chamber of Commerce Business Lunch: Most of Council attended the Chamber lunch where one of our MLAs, the Associate Minister for Natural Gas Dale Nally was the keynote speaker.
Budget presentations continued: We finished up department budget presentations on Thursday. The deadline for new budget motions from Council was Friday at noon, with an extension to midnight tonight (Sunday) for motions related to information requests. We’ll meet Tuesday morning to decide on the order of all the motions - I’ll post about some of the motions prior to our first budget debate meeting on Thursday.
Committee appointment interviews: Council spent most of Saturday interviewing applicants for the vacancies on our citizen committees. Once again, I was blown away by the experience/passion/expertise of the residents who put their names forward to serve.
Agenda highlights
Internal Audit Report - Enterprise Risk
Our internal auditors presented their findings to the IA Steering Committee a few weeks ago and the committee directed that the report be presented to Council. Administration agreed with all the findings, which include recommendations to:
Adopt a risk management Council policy;
Elevate the profile of the manager of risk management;
Develop a long-term risk management plan;
Integrate risk management with strategic planning.
Tax Relief ($24,000)
This year, the city has received 9 requests to waive property taxes/penalties or potions thereof. We are permitted to waive taxes on compassionate grounds, but must not waive them for reasons including "failure to receive notice or payment errors or delays”.
Shared Equity Mortgage Program ($175,000/year + interest?)
Through this motion, we are considering whether to take advantage of the Canadian Housing and Mortgage Corporation’s shared equity program. “As a shared equity mortgage is a loan to residents, the City would either need to partner with a non-profit organization to operate the program and distribute the funds on a fee for service basis, or operate the program and distribute the funds through a municipally controlled corporation (either a new one solely dedicated to this endeavour or potentially as a branch of the newly developing municipal utility corporation). Administration has not completed an in- depth analysis of costs but estimates a ball park figure around $15,000 to establish a new arms-length corporation, $35,000 for enabling operational criteria, and annual operational costs around $125,000 annually for minimal staff, office space and overhead to administer the Program”.
Because of the costs, risks, and inexperience of city staff in the residential lending market, Administration is recommending that the city does not administer this program because “St. Albert first-time home buyers are eligible to apply directly to CMHC’s FTHBI Program at no cost to the City. This program provides additional opportunities for the first-time home buyer, through traditional purchasing methods”.
Affordable Housing - Possible Land Donation
This motion, in response to a report on possible options to encourage increased availability of affordable housing (20% below market rates), seeks to receive expressions of interest from groups who could contribute a commercial/residential development that would provide more affordable housing options. The city-owned land proposed to be donated or provided as a long-term lease is at 22 Saint Thomas St (up to 5 stories) and 2 Saint Anne St (up to 14 stories) in the downtown core. The two properties are shown in yellow on the maps provided by Admin:
This is a brief and incomplete overview of our meetings, with my personal comments sprinkled in - In no way are my opinions representative of the official direction of council or the City of St. Albert. Please let me know of any typos or errors. As always, I also encourage everyone who is able to tune in the the live-stream of the meeting (2pm here) or attend in-person (3rd floor of St. Albert Place, hang a right getting out of the elevator). You can also register to speak if you have information to present to council. Full agenda packages can be found on the stalbert.ca website.
