Hadley Road lot deal accepted, but not without questions

The land is city-owned and contains 71 lots that have underground services installed but still need asphalt and concrete to create streets, curb, gutter and sidewalk.

Whether the city chooses to complete the work or let a developer do it would be a decision of council.

Privately owned, Lake Estates in the West Hill has 16 lots for sale, Adanac Pointe has about six and there are multiple in-fill lots available as well.

Acting Community Services Director Michael Nelson said that only two or three lots have been sold each year on Hadley Road.

“We haven’t sold many lots over the years, so we do feel there is a lot of private subdivisions that do have lots available for sale and for development and that’s why we’re recommending approval of this sale today,” he said.

A housing needs assessment commissioned by the city last year showed a significant lack of housing across the spectrum.

The gap is biggest in affordable housing, with almost 1,500 units needed. Of those 80 per cent need to be rentals and most would need to be priced below $938/month.

The Hadley Road lots, and those in the partially developed area are slated mainly for single family homes. Prices in that neighbourhood are in the $500,000 and higher range, taking them out of the affordable category.

“It tells a pretty grim picture when we’re short this many houses and that’s where this is almost a guarantee for 22 houses over the next five years. It also does start with your housing continuum, where once we have new houses built, there would be people looking to upgrade,” Nelson said.

The needs assessment identified a lack of entry-level market homes with a price around $240,000 to be affordable for young families. To move people along the housing continuum and free up entry level homes, more options priced between $360,000 and $440,000 are needed.

Coun. Tony Head agreed that the deal was positive but had questions about the prices in the deal.

“What I see is we’re essentially not capitalizing on some revenue here,” he said.

He also wanted to know if the city was recovering its costs and was told that yes they are and will see an extra $200,000 over their cost to develop it.

The pricing was based on the cost to the city to develop the lots and accounted for green space requirements as well.

“This area was developed in 2014 and no one has been buying them at that price, so that’s where the reduction was, to try and sell these lots,” Nelson said.

Because Pawluk Homes, the buyer, plans to build single family homes, they do not qualify for any additional incentives.

Head said he is worried about losing opportunity to sell more lots because of the five year timeline.

Coun. Dan Brown, who was the only councillor to vote against the deal, said he didn’t like the staged payment schedule.

“It kind of seems like he’s putting 17 of them on a layaway plan,” he said. “To me it seems like a one-sided deal. His letter of offer seems like we give him everything he asks for.”

“Is adding five houses a year making a dent in our housing shortage?” Brown asked.

If the number remained at five, it would take 300 years to build 1,600 homes. The city has other housing construction happening, however. Much of it is planned by social agencies, like the YWCA.

The Métis Nation—Saskatchewan struck a re-zoning deal with the city for a 35-lot subdivision in the West Hill in 2024. They plan to build small homes, connected in units of four and want to sell them to their citizens as an affordable option. Construction has not yet begun as MN —S is in the process of finishing a service centre directly next to it.

Nelson said that Pawluk is also taking a risk since the houses are being built without a buyer in place beforehand, so there is no guarantee of a sale.

“This is almost like an incentive for him to want to do business in the city, to actually take the risk and help us get more houses built,” Nelson said. “Plus, it’s five more houses than we had last year.”

With a major expansion of the Victoria Hospital underway, an estimated 500 jobs are expected to be added to the local economy. Those people will also need housing, councillors said.

The money from this sale will be put into the city’s land fund, which has a deficit of about $5.5 million.

The city also has the ability to take the lots back if the buyer defaults on their portion of the deal or pursue legal action to get any money owed.

Because they did not anticipate their open lots selling at once, finishing the 71 additional lots was not put in the 2026 budget.

Several councillors commented that they hope to see a quicker plan come forward to deal with any future requests for empty lots.

“I’m putting some faith in the fact that we’ve done our homework, that this is a good builder, he’s going to produce what he says he’s going to do and that we’re going to be ready for inventory for other builders in a very short order,” said Coun. Darren Solomon.

Councillors Dawn Kilmer and Stephen Ring both echoed his comments.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

by Susan McNeil

Hadley Road lot deal accepted, but not without questions

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