Committee agree?

Okay, we will move to the capital, page 3-10, information item. With that, I would like to ask the Minister if he will bring in any witnesses.

Yes, I would, Mr. Chairman.

Does committee agree the Minister brings in his witnesses?

Sergeant-at-Arms, escort the witnesses.

For the record, Mr. Minister, can you introduce your witnesses?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me, to my left, Mr. Jeff Polakoff, president and CEO of the NWT Housing Corporation; to my right I have Mr. Jeff Anderson, vice-president of finance with the NWT Housing Corporation.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Welcome, witnesses. We are dealing with an information item with regards to page 3-10. Are there any questions? Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you Mr. Chair. I’ve gone through the list of items identified within the capital estimates, they’re information items. It looks like there are one, two, three, four, five new units under the HELP program for construction in ‘11-12, and I know there’s been a lot of talk about the number of vacancies and the Minister has made some commitments in the House about getting rid of the vacancies that exist in the Northwest Territories, but over my three years in the Legislative Assembly, I have been to a number of the communities and a lot of the communities that I go to, there are vacant HELP units. What kind of analysis is done before we decide to put more HELP units in a community? On this list I see HELP units going into Aklavik, and I see HELP units going into Colville Lake, and I see HELP units going into Fort Simpson as well as Whati. So what kind of analysis is done to determine that that’s the community that needs a HELP unit? Has there been any analysis to see if there’s a demand for those HELP units? Are there people that will meet the programs as they exist to take those HELP units?

I think we need to be cautious about creating more and more units when we have some vacancies and the department’s already challenged with trying to get rid of some of the HELP units that we have. What kind of analysis goes into play, how do we decide where they go? Those types of things.

Mr. Minister.

Part of the analysis was through the Needs Survey. Part of it was some of the units that were put down, 2009, the Member’s correct; there has been a lot of HELP units on the ground. This number is actually a little lower than was originally planned for because of the number of vacant units we have on the ground. Part of the analysis was based on the Needs Survey. There’s still a need for some of the HELP units in some of the communities. That was the reason these particular communities were chosen.

I recognize compared to previous years there seem to be a lot less HELP units being built, which I think is fine given that you guys already have a number of vacancies. Once again, I recognize that you’re working hard to fill those vacancies. There are a lot of public housing replacement lines within this capital plan. Once again, I’m curious about the process. How does one determine when a public housing unit has reached the end of its lifecycle? How do we decide to dispose? Are they all destroyed? Are some simply renovated and their life is reinvigorated, if you will? Are some of them sold off to private interests? How do we determine and, I guess, further, do we maintain a particular size of housing stock? Do we plan on our housing stock for public housing to grow or do we maintain a static number over time that we’re replacing and fixing, replacing

and fixing, and disposing where appropriate? Just if you could help me understand that, that would be great.

There are condition ratings done every year on public housing units and if they reach a certain condition rating after they’ve been renovated a few times, then this one is determined that they’re taken out of stock.

The public housing replacement units that you see, as we bring in new public housing units into a community we have to remove a few of them to keep our public housing portfolio level because of declining O and M funding from CMHC. So we try to dispose of the units. I think we have 44 right now that we’re looking to dispose of.

We’ve had discussions with community groups. They’re quite interested in taking over some of these units. We’ve been able to broker a few deals with them, which worked well for the Housing Corporation. There’s an interest out there. I was at a couple of meetings recently where they expressed an interest in some of our older stock. Some we would sell off to the existing tenants, if the need arises.

Our last option would be to totally destroy the units. We’ll explore all other opportunities to put these units to use before we actually demolish them.

The next area I just have a few questions on is, I’m looking through your list and I’m seeing a lot more duplexes in here. I’ve been to a lot of communities over time and I guess I’m seeing more and more duplexes and more and more row housing type units over time. I think that’s a good direction for us to be going. I really feel that getting away from sort of single, stand-alone units over time will be better as far as maintenance costs, heating costs, if we can share some of the costs on a unit basis, construction costs, all of those types of things.

Does the Housing Corporation have a program where we’re going to be moving away from single, detached units to multi-family units? Is there any move towards apartments in some of these communities that can house a larger number of people for a far more economical cost? I mean, apartments that we can heat with a single sort of source rather than multiple sources. As far as reducing our overall costs but maximizing the number of people, have we thought about going down that direction? I see duplexes, great. Is there any thought about taking that next step to maybe more or larger multi-family dwellings?

The Member is very correct; that is the direction as a corporation that we’re trying to go. With the changing demographics across the Northwest Territories, we’re finding that we have a lot more younger people, small families, single people getting into units, and seniors. This is

one that works well with the declining funding. We need to try and be as efficient as possible.

There is a move towards more multi-family type units, duplexes, triplexes, four-plexes. We have some nine-plexes in some of the communities. That is a direction that the Housing Corporation will go. It used to be that the bulk of our units were all detached units and awfully expensive to maintain and heat. If we can use a common system to heat the units, that is the direction that we are going. Especially with the changing demographics too, I think it’s the right direction to go.

I agree 100 percent. I think about our long-term costs, given that our funds are decreasing, I think it’s super important.

Which I think goes to the next thing and I know my colleague Mr. Bromley always asks these types of questions, and I know the Housing Corporation has already accepted a standard of construction that is higher than, say, the national standard. When it comes to what we’re doing, I mean, it’s a little bit more expensive to do some of these things now to increase our efficiencies, to go with pellets, to go with other things, woodstoves, all these types of things in our communities, but there is some real benefit to it. Forget the positive side of the environment and just think about the positive side of the costs. Huge opportunities here to help people reduce their costs which might address some of those things we were talking about earlier today.

I encourage you to continue to push the envelope as the Housing Corporation and move even further beyond what you’re doing as far as efficiencies in the homes, your construction techniques to help the people in those homes and ultimately you as the Housing Corporation reduce your costs, because it’s going to get harder and harder over time, especially with the decreasing funds.

I’m encouraging you to push and push and push and move further and further beyond the national standards for building to increase those efficiencies and opportunities to help us save costs. Just a comment. Doesn’t really need a response.

Just a comment. Mr. McLeod, if you want to reply, it’s up to you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the comment from the Member. It is something that as a corporation we’re constantly trying to keep on top of the technology and how we can improve the products we put on the ground. At the end of the day, you’re absolutely correct that there is a savings to the Housing Corporation. Obviously, it’s climate-friendly and a saving to the homeowners at the same time. It is something that we’re constantly trying to do, is improve the product we put on the ground.

Next on the list I have Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My first question is for the Housing Corporation Minister. I wonder what type of cycle the construction is on. I see there’s materials, labour and land development. I’m wondering if the corporation is building on three-year cycles.

Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In some of the communities it would be a one-year cycle. In some of the smaller communities, as you can see from the list, materials are brought in one year and then labour. So it’s a two-year cycle, the short answer.

One of the needs at the community level has been a need to provide small, detached units for a certain type of homeownership clientele in the communities, and the Housing Corporation has been working on a small unit. There is a need for units that are maybe a little under 500 square feet to something that may be a little over 700 square feet. Those are fairly small units basically designed for a single person or a two-person family. I’m wondering if there’s been any progress made for that type of unit.