city council rejected the requirement<\/a>, which would have eliminated the need for public consultation or rezoning for landowners to add up to four units.<\/p>\nHousing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson provided CBC News with a statement that said the federal government is working with the City of Red Deer on next steps.<\/p>\n
Still hopeful<\/p>\n
Red Deer Mayor Cindy Jefferies said she remains hopeful the city can still reach a compromise with Ottawa.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first reaction was, \u2018Well, maybe that\u2019s helpful,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cMaybe what we need to do is create a new agreement that reflects the reality of Red Deer not wanting to go to a blanket zoning position.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could do four-units housing, but only on some sites. \u2026 It was the blanket piece that was causing problems for our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the city, several letters outlining these concerns were sent to Robertson by former mayor Ken Johnston last year, but no response was received.<\/p>\n
On Dec. 19, 2025, the CMHC formally warned the city it was in breach of the agreement and gave it 21 days \u201cto cure the non-compliance or repay the first advance of HAF funding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last week, city council passed a motion \u2014 with a 7-2 vote \u2014 brought forward by Coun. Chad Krahn that directs administration to continue to seek dialogue with Ottawa rather than immediately returning the $3 million in funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur council didn\u2019t want to just send the money back without having a conversation with the minister,\u201d Jefferies said. \u201cWe\u2019re hoping that terminating this agreement will open the door to an addendum or an amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coun. Kraymer Barnstable was one of the two councillors who voted against Krahn\u2019s motion, raising concern about ongoing risk to the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hope is dwindling, and I don\u2019t want us also in breach of contract,\u201d he said during a council meeting last week. \u201cYou don\u2019t know what the ramifications could be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we need to start preparing for how we make housing work in the city of Red Deer without the federal dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Highly competitive<\/p>\n
The CMHC said the HAF application process was highly competitive, with more than 540 applications submitted and 241 agreements signed.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly the most ambitious applications were successful, and many of those applicants have met or exceeded the ambition of their HAF agreements,\u201d the organization said, adding that funding from cancelled agreements will be redirected to other communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks to the reforms Canadian cities and towns are implementing under the Housing Accelerator Fund, in just the first year, local governments who received funding issued 160,585 residential building permits, 22,000 more than expected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jefferies said she is hopeful that Red Deer will be given a chance to make an amendment to its application for the funding that the CMHC would be able to consider, rather than having the money clawed back and it being allocated to another community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s good reason for the federal government to want to work with a city our size,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRed Deer really needs housing. Red Deer is the third-largest city in Alberta. And we want to make this work in a good way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-422720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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