While Prince Albert is seeing a lot of large construction projects, such as this apartment complex near the hospital, development of homes is slow so staff are looking at ways to spur development. (Susan McNeil/paNOW)

By Susan McNeil

Home building incentives

Draft plan for home building incentives presented to Prince Albert city council

Oct 4, 2023 | 4:04 PM

The City of Prince Albert is still working on getting more residential construction happening on empty lots with a proposed building rebate once homes are built on some vacant lands.

The planning department is suggesting a $10,000 incentive to spur development on empty, privately-owned land and wants to use tax money from vacant land to do so.

“The intent is for the money within that reserve to help to fund or help to incentivize development,” said Craig Guidinger, director of planning to city council during Tuesday’s meeting.

“The fundamental idea or criteria that is developed in my report is to incentivize development on privately owned property.”

Last year, the city added a base tax to vacant lots, doubling the tax bill t to $1,600 annually for un-developed residential land, which brought in $146,000 in extra revenue.

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The planning department would like to start using that money to pay people that build a home on privately owned land that has been empty for more than three years.

City owned land would not qualify for several reasons, not the least of which it doesn’t have a tax bill, and already has an incentive develop through a reduced price.

Owners in PA would get $10,000 grant from city once development is done except for lots within city own subdivision, private but vacant for less than three years and privately owned lots that have been vacant because of demolition for less than three years.

Essentially what the city is doing is creating a three year waiting period for the vacant properties to be levied the vacancy tax.

“We have had people come forward and say that they don’t want to demolish their properties that are in disrepair, because they are paying less taxes now than they would if they demolish them,” Guidinger said.

“Demolish your property, you’ve got three years to develop it, market it before you start getting taxed that vacant land amount.”

The grant would be payable once construction has started.

Guidinger said that while the city is seeing a lot of commercial growth, residential construction is not keeping pace.

“We’re not getting people knocking down our doors to develop homes,” he said.

This year, the city saw a handful of new home starts and next years numbers look to be higher but there are still lots of questions about incentives to build.

Several councillors suggested that the incentive be higher than $10,000 in order to help create more homes.

Mayor Greg Dionne said in planning the program, they want to start with a cap of 10 grants of $10,000 and see how it goes while making sure there is still money in that fund for next year.

The amount going into the fund will reduce for every grant issued because that lot will no longer get the vacant land tax.

“We didn’t want to spend all the money because the more successful the program is, the more the pool is going to shrink,” he said.

Council voted unanimously to have staff prepare a final version of the program based on the report submitted.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com