Seen outside of the windows of Prince Albert's newest apartment building is work on a second building. A third sits behind it and even then, hundreds more units are needed, the city heard recently. (Susan McNeil/paNOW Staff)

By Susan McNeil

Planning and development

Prince Albert city planners hope to incentivize builders to solve housing crunch

Mar 27, 2025 | 5:00 PM

A recent report showed some gaps that need filling in Prince Albert’s housing market and one city department is getting ready to make some changes.

The Community Development Department (formerly Planning and Development) is looking at ways to incentivize developers to create more housing.

“I wasn’t necessarily surprised,” said the department’s manager, Craig Guidinger. “I knew that we had some significant gaps, and I had an idea of where they were.”

The report, which went before council two weeks ago, showed a lack in affordable housing along with a gap in market housing in the $300,000 – $430,000 range.

Prince Albert Housing Authority has had a zero-vacancy rate for family social housing units for several years and maintains a waitlist of about 60 families.

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“That below market priced housing is something that is it’s very difficult to deliver, because often it’s done by our nonprofits and it’s very much dependent on provincial and federal funding and things like that. So, I wasn’t surprised to see that,” said Guidinger.

What was a surprise was the size of gap in housing just above or below $300,000 that most appeals to single people buying homes or new couples or young families.

“I know that’s been a gap for quite some time. I was a little bit surprised to see the gap was more sizable than I was expecting.”

Along with knowing that not of the people in Prince Albert made it to the official census count of 38,000 (an estimated 10,000 did not), Guidinger said not all housing units are on the record either. He estimates about 1,500 secondary or basement suites are unofficial and many may not be suitable for living in.

“Some of these, not all of them, but a large proportion of secondary suites and basement suites and things like just aren’t up to a standard we would like to see them at.” he explained. The report suggested that might be one of the reasons renters move a lot between units.

City planners would like to see about 20 units added to the transitional/supportive housing inventory every year and another 60 units for affordable housing for families.

Development is already happening for seniors housing.

“We’ve got some developers that are doing some beautiful projects in Prince Albert, kind of in the West Hill area. And then there’s the entry level market housing where we can really have a positive impact as a municipality as well,” said Guidinger.

With the information from the report now in one document, the city will use it to apply for federal funding.

The city has several tools it can use to make building a sweeter idea for businesses that want to invest in market housing.

One is to discount city-owned lots. Another is to change how the zoning works.

“We’re going to start reviewing, you know, our land inventory, our land pricing, our zoning bylaw, our rules and regulations to see if there’s any ways we can help incentivize any kind of developments,” said Michael Nelson, planning and development manager at city hall.

When the federal government signs deals with municipalities for the Housing Accelerator Fund, a common requirement has been that four-plexes must be automatically approved in the zoning bylaw.

That would mean multi-family units are approved in areas that only see large, single family homes now. When asked about NIMBY pushback from existing homeowners, Nelson said there are ways to make sure the new units fit in the neighbourhood.

“Some of that can be achieved through different development standards. As far as, you know, the certain size of lots, you have to have, things like that and depending on the area of the city, the lots might not be big enough already,” he said.

Another tactic is to work with large developers from outside of the city or organizations that can access different grant funding to make the building more affordable.

READ MORE: First of three new apartment buildings nears completion

The Métis Nation—Saskatchewan has plans to build affordable row housing units near its new office and childcare centre in the West Hill. While some preliminary work has been completed with zoning and negotiations with the city, a development permit has not been submitted as yet.

Their plan is to construct multiple streets of housing that they would then sell as rent-to-own units.

“I think a lot of it will come down to, you know, the size of the house, the price of the lot and, you know, any kind of other programs that might be coming,” Nelson said.

Removing the GST on new homes has been a campaign promise by both the federal and liberal parties in the current election, something that Nelson said could make a difference.

“I know our construction costs are a little bit higher with everything right now, but if its a smaller house, you should be able to hit some of those targets,” he said.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

On BlueSky: @susanmcneil.bsky.social