Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the sale of staff housing, the Department of Government Services and DPW is in charge of the sale of staff housing. Also, Personnel is involved. The direction is to offer the sale of the staff house to the tenant who is living in the unit, to encourage tenants to get into home ownership. So far, in all the communities as of
October 28, 85 housing units have been sold under the sale of staff housing program. A total of 64 were sold directly to the tenants. As government employees, they took the offer to buy those.
A total of 21 units were sold to the public through realtors. Further, 92 sales are in the process of making arrangements for financing, where they obtain land leases and arrange for surveys. Most of these sales should be complete by year end. The Member from Fort Smith raised a concern. Ten units have been sold to employees and another eight units are pending sale. One unit was sold by public tender. It was damaged by fire and sold as surplus. All sales were based on appraised value and as a short-term strategy, tenants were offered units at 100 per cent of their appraised value.
Tenants can submit a counter offer of not less than 90 per cent of the appraised value. Two sales occurred on this basis, one in August 1992 and one in April 1993. In phase I of the strategy, tenants could submit counter offers only if they were supported by another appraisal which differed by no more than ten per cent of the GNWT appraisal. Five sales occurred under this program, the last in December 1992.