There has been a proposal to include affordable housing in city buildings and recreational centers floating around Edmonton that is meant to increase the citys inventory of affordable housing in the most efficient way possible.nbsp; Mayor Don Iveson feels that using public land can go a lot further in the effort to create more opportunities to families in need of affordable housing.nbsp; As it sits right now, public land is not zoned to allow for housing; however, that can change once the provincial government sits to revise the Municipal Government Act later this year. The Mayors plans are to allow Edmonton to be the initial city to create this change when they sit down to negotiate with the provincial government. Plans like this have been tried in Calgary at the Lewis Station Development where affordable housing was created for a firehouse-EMS Station. Over the last several years, the city of Calgary allocated its budget surplus to the project and has invested $3.5 million over the last few years and in the upcoming years is looking to decrease the budget allocated to the project by half. The 5 year plan in Edmonton is calling for $1 million to be used to purchase units from developers in the city for affordable housing, another $1.2 million to be used to upgrade secondary suites and another $335,577 for rebates. This plan leaves little to no funding left over for developing a surplus of school sites in 2017.nbsp; Mayor Iveson is a huge adovate when it comes to creating opportunities for affordable housing in the city and suggests that budgetary decisions should not be made until it is clear what funding can come from both the municipal and provincial governments but the city is prepared to both providing land and public engagement of the cause. His belief is that, moving forward, the city will not have to invest as much capital to the affordable housing project as the responsibility of the project will shift towards the senior levels of government. It has been confirmed that both the municipal and provincial governments have allocated part of the budget towards the affordable housing initiative, althoughnbsp;it is unclear the amount that Edmonton is entitled to at this time. This also makes it unclear whether or not Edmonton will require to provide any additional funding for the affordable housing initiative from the city. The Terry Paranych Team is a huge supporter when it comes to affordable housing in Edmonton. Paranych Rental Communities owns many rental properties in the Edmonton area from 1 amp; 2 bedroom apartments, duplexes, single family homes and condos with rent starting as low as $650 Call Us Today at 780–660–6688.

 via Edmonton Real Estate Blog http://www.paranych.com/blog/affordable-housing-initiative-in-edmonton.html