The term boomtown gets tossed around pretty liberally these days, last year Rupert was presented as a boomtown in the making. It’s a simple word that seems to have spurred on real estate values to rather silly points all while a population base remains stagnant at below 14,000 people.
Much talk was heard a year ago about the boom to come, which may still be on the horizon but certainly hasn’t shown up in the downtown area with new stores, in fact one shopping centre project was cancelled despite the boom to come.
Likewise while there seems to be some growth in the population base of Rupert after years and years of exodus, we’re certainly not to the point where anyone is complaining about the traffic around town of late.
Even the signs of better things to come are rather modest as our housing development on 11th Avenue shows, where progress is steady but slow on about a dozen houses.
Now compare all of that to Fort McMurray where the boom has been put into the term boomtown for years and seems destined to continue for good number of years to follow.
Fort McMurray has just put together plans to develop two subdivisions in the city that will be home to 40,000 residents, desperately needed housing in the city of 65,000 that has struggled to come to grips with the pace of growth spurred on by the tar sand developments in the area.
The Edmonton Journal had an interesting examination of the situation and how government, both provincial and municipal plan to handle the constant demand for more.
Boomtowns are all in the eye of those that declare them, but clearly some boomtowns are booming more than others...
Housing for 40,000 slated for Fort McMurray
Alexandra Zabjek,
edmontonjournal.com
Published: Monday, June 23
Much talk was heard a year ago about the boom to come, which may still be on the horizon but certainly hasn’t shown up in the downtown area with new stores, in fact one shopping centre project was cancelled despite the boom to come.
Likewise while there seems to be some growth in the population base of Rupert after years and years of exodus, we’re certainly not to the point where anyone is complaining about the traffic around town of late.
Even the signs of better things to come are rather modest as our housing development on 11th Avenue shows, where progress is steady but slow on about a dozen houses.
Now compare all of that to Fort McMurray where the boom has been put into the term boomtown for years and seems destined to continue for good number of years to follow.
Fort McMurray has just put together plans to develop two subdivisions in the city that will be home to 40,000 residents, desperately needed housing in the city of 65,000 that has struggled to come to grips with the pace of growth spurred on by the tar sand developments in the area.
The Edmonton Journal had an interesting examination of the situation and how government, both provincial and municipal plan to handle the constant demand for more.
Boomtowns are all in the eye of those that declare them, but clearly some boomtowns are booming more than others...
Housing for 40,000 slated for Fort McMurray
Alexandra Zabjek,
edmontonjournal.com
Published: Monday, June 23
EDMONTON - The Alberta government announced this afternoon it is laying the framework to develop two new communities in Fort McMurray that could house 40,000 people in a boomtown that has been hindered by a tight housing market for years.
The communities will be located in the northwest and southeast corners of the city and will spread out over approximately 4,000 acres. The government plans to develop the southern parcel of land - called Saline Creek Plateau - as a public-private partnership. The development of the other community, called Parsons Creek, will be driven by a community development board.
At least 20 per cent of the units in Parsons Creek will designated as affordable housing in the first phase of development, which will cover 300 acres. The Wood Buffalo Housing and Development Corporation will be allocated those units. Revenue from the development would also be used to reinvest in affordable housing.
The proposed P3 project could be the biggest such project in the world, said Treasury Board President Lloyd Snelgrove, who made the announcement in Fort McMurray.
The government could not take conventional approaches to developing housing in the northeastern city, otherwise "we'll never get ahead of the bottleneck we face," he said.
The population of Fort McMurray currently sits at 65,000 and could swell to 100,000 by 2012 as new energy projects are approved.
Today's announcement comes as a result of last year's Radke Report, which criticized the ad hoc approach to policy and spending in Fort McMurray. Last February, the government pledged more than $50 million towards rent supplements, a homeless shelter and 300 affordable housing units in the city.
The first housing in the new development is expected to be available in 2010.
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