‘Tomorrow never really seems to come’: What waiting through Jasper rebuild approval process feels like for some residents

A year after a wildfire destroyed part of the town of Jasper, mostly in residential areas, many residents are still hitting hurdles trying to rebuild.

Although Jason Stockfish’s house in Jasper’s Cabin Creek neighbourhood was one of many that was burned down by a wildfire on July 24, 2024, he recognizes the situation has provided his family an opportunity to rebuild their beloved home newer and better – eventually.

“We’ve got drawings. We’ve got our paint picked out. We got our appliances picked out. We know exactly what it’s going to look like,” he told CTV News Edmonton in a recent interview.

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“I spend half my days just dreaming about being in my new home and wishing that the future would come faster.”

Although his family is ahead of most others in the rebuild process – their lot has been clear of debris for about two months now and design work is finished – they find themselves in a painful limbo waiting for development and building permits, all the while living in a basement suite.

Stockfish chalks the delay up to bureaucracy. There are many approvals needed to build in Jasper National Park. One of the first was aesthetics. The latest has been soil samples, which suggest too-high copper levels in his yard.

“I don’t know,” he said after trying to explain this recent hiccup. “It’s a little confusing.”

Another is that the Cabin Creek neighbourhood doesn’t have standardized zoning, according to Stockfish’s builder.

“To rebuild on this scale, a lot of the zoning isn’t necessarily up to date on new construction zoning and methodology, so that’s a little bit tricky to navigate when you’re using, you know, motifs from the 70s,” said Kevin Read, president of Encore Master Builder in Edmonton.

“We started going for permits in March. So I figured, OK, March, give a couple months, we’ll be (starting construction in) May,” he added.

“Right now, we’re pushing for the end of August.”

Jasper rebuilding update

The town has much building to do.

The fire destroyed about one third of Jasper’s structures, around 300 buildings.

As of Wednesday, nine properties in Cabin Creek had received a development permit and just two had received a building permit, according to a permit progress map on the municipality’s website.

Throughout the town, Parks Canada has approved 204 development permits and 65 building permits since May, with dozens more applications under review, for various kinds of projects. Construction has started at Alpine Village Cabin Resort, affordable housing project Caribou Creek Co-op and Sunwapta Apartments on Geiki Street.

The municipality and Parks Canada have both quadrupled their development office staff levels, at least.

“In addition to adding more staff members, Parks Canada has also streamlined development review and approvals by updating land use policies, expediting approvals for variances, establishing new mechanisms to contact the development team, and eliminating steps in the development application and review process,” Parks Canada says on its website.

“We recognize that the process of rebuilding a home lost to the wildfire is complex and can lead to frustration,” a spokesperson from the Jasper Recovery Coordination Centre (JRCC) told CTV News Edmonton in a statement.

“The JRCC remains committed to working with all parties to expedite a safe and efficient rebuild, and to supporting Jasper residents throughout this process.”

Read called his conversations with both the municipality and Parks Canada “very good,” noting both seem open to change.

“Every municipality has their own strengths and weaknesses,” he said. “Edmonton versus St. Albert versus Leduc versus Spruce Grove versus Strathcona County. They all have their differences that you have to work with. That’s no different than Jasper.

“The main difference in Jasper is they’re just not used to building very many homes in a year.”

Waiting is getting harder and harder, Stockfish said.

“We’ve just been looking at this lot that’s been cleared for a couple months now, thinking, ‘Tomorrow we can get started.’ But tomorrow never really seems to come.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Jeremy Thompson