The City is looking to build three more Link transit platforms in Brighton to try and maintain more than $10 million in federal funding tied to housing supply targets. A report going to city council’s regular business meeting on Wednesday is looking to move $1 million from the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) to build three new platforms and one interim pad for the Link bus rapid transit system to alter the housing supply count for “reporting purposes.” In 2024, the City of Saskatoon and the federal government announced a three-year $41.3 million agreement to fast-track housing and remove exclusionary zoning. As part of the agreement, the city must meet housing supply targets. The city is currently short of its targets in three categories: multi-unit housing near rapid transit, other multi-unit housing and affordable housing. According to figures last updated on Sept. 30, the city is currently 490 short for homes near rapid transit, 184 short on “other multi-units” — defined as larger or higher-density projects like mid-rise and high-rise apartment buildings — and 222 units short on affordable housing. The report from administration says the city has until Dec. 31 to achieve those targets or risk losing some of the final $10.3 million payment from the federal government. “If the funding adjustment is not approved, the city may be at risk of not meeting its commitments under the HAF contribution agreement,” the report said. To satisfy the federal government, the city is looking to build three new Link platforms in Brighton, so new builds in that area can be counted towards the housing supply data. “If Link stations on 8th Street and McOrmond Drive are constructed in the near term, residential development within Brighton that is within 1.5 kilometres of the rapid transit stations could be considered as being located near rapid transit for HAF reporting purposes,” the report read. But the current planned and funded Link construction does not include extending Link to Brighton. The city says Link expansion into Brighton is part of long term planning for the area, and the city suspects the area will have more demand for transit once the planned high school and leisure centre in the neighbourhood are built and opened. To facilitate construction, the city is looking to move a combined $1 million previously allocated to different HAF projects. “As a result, the city would exceed its current HAF targets for both the ‘near rapid transit’ and ‘other multi-unit’ housing categories, providing additional support for receiving the full fourth HAF funding contribution,” the report says. As for the remaining affordable housing units, housing providers say red tape and funding commitments often delay projects that groups and governments would like to build. “It takes way too much time,” Shirley Isbister, the president of Central Urban Metis Federation Inc. (CUMFI) said. “There needs to be a simpler process, and I say that all the time.” As per the three-year agreement, there was a target of building 733 new affordable housing units. The city has built 511 so far. Isbister says even with plans ready to go, something like not having a permit or contract signed can delay construction, and all three levels of government have their own criteria to meet before signing off on an affordable housing project. “It’s a vicious cycle,” Isbister said. “And it could be made so much easier if they probably involved people that are actually doing this. It could be a one-step where if you’re going for federal dollars, the federal (program) lines up the province and the city and then we make it happen in a much shorter time, because we do need a lot of affordable housing in Saskatoon.” The city report didn’t say how much funding could be at risk if the city falls short of its affordable housing targets by the end of the year. The report shows more than 5,500 “missing middle” units have been built, which lists duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, row houses, courtyard housing and low-rise apartments as examples. The HAF target was set at 515. Last year, the city surpassed the target number of net new units by October.
