Northern Alberta residents waiting for promised homes as housing crisis worsens
CBC
Leaders from a northern Alberta community are calling on the region's municipality to speed up permit approvals to build new homes and address the housing crisis.
A new report by the Rural Development Network says the hamlet of Conklin, 350 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, is lacking housing supply and residents are living in unsafe housing conditions.
Conklin is located in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo and is about 150 kilometres from Fort McMurray.
The community has 15 prefabricated homes ready for assembly, said Scott Duguid, CEO of the Conklin Resource Development Advisory Committee, but he needs them to pass inspection with the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.
"They've cancelled on me five different times to even come out and do the inspection," Duduid said at a news conference Wednesday. "It just doesn't seem like a priority for the municipality."
In a statement, the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo said that the Conklin Resource Development Advisory Committee is now at the stage of construction completion certificate approval, which ensures that private developments were done following approved infrastructure plans.
The municipality said there were still problems with the homes.
"While there were delays inspecting the site for the construction completion certificate, the inspection occurred on November 29, 2023, and deficiencies on the part of the developer were noted, including grading of the site. These deficiencies must be remedied in order to apply for development permits with [the municipality's] planning and development," said the statement to CBC News on Thursday.
The homes are located in the Pine Lane subdivision in Conklin, which has been in the works since 2020.
According to the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, the original raw land was vacant and needed infrastructure such as utilities, roads, water, and sewage to name a few, to support residential development.
To facilitate this, the lands had to go through the municipality's subdivision process, which includes eight steps.
Six of these eight processes are completed according to the municipality.
In 2020, Cenovus Energy Inc. pledged $50 million to build homes in six Indigenous communities near its oilsands projects in northern Alberta, including Conklin.
In a statement to CBC News on Friday, Cenovus said Conklin is scheduled to see its first houses next year.
Kamloops Coun. Bill Sarai has apologized after admitting he secretly recorded his argument with Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson in January 2023, then sent a snippet of the conversation to the mayor, suggesting someone else had recorded it.
Yellowknife city council removed $550,000, intended to operate its own dog pound, from the city's draft budget on Monday.
The RCMP says it's considering deploying Mounties-in-training to help police the Canada-U.S. border as political anxiety over border control mounts in the face of tariff threats from the incoming Trump administration.
The death and destruction in the Crosschild family didn't stop at the domestic murder of Autumn, a 25-year-old Indigenous woman killed by Brandon Yellowfly, the man she once wanted to marry.
Josh Smee imagines a future in which food banks no longer exist in Canada, because people don't need them.
The Toronto Transit Commission board has voted to ban electric bikes with lithium-ion batteries from TTC vehicles and stations from November 15 to April 15 each year due to safety concerns.
Prince Edward Island now has a law on the books to regulate service dogs, but it could be two more years before it comes into effect.
The partner of a man who went missing near Chetwynd, B.C. more than six weeks ago says she believes their dog, which disappeared at the same time, has been found alive.
WARNING: This story contains details of sexual assault and may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
Multinational food corporation Cargill said on Tuesday it plans to cut roughly five per cent of its staff, or about 8,000 jobs.
The season's first blast of winter weather continued Tuesday in the region and north of the city with some schools and school purpose vehicles cancelled and plows out in force on the roads.