The Town of Olds started constructing a housing strategy last year and at this week’s meeting council received an update on what has been built so far.
According to Mayor Dan Daley, in order to keep up with demand, the strategy set a target of 620 new homes by the year 2030.
He is pleased to report that the Town is at a combined total of 307 completed as well as new starts, as of August 15th. Mayor Daley says “of course we’ve also increased the inventory on rental properties here in Town too which is taking the demand off of that market as well. When we did the housing study we were at a 0.6 of a vacancy rate. So now we are starting to see a little bit of an increase in availability for rentals.”
When it comes to entry level homes, single family dwellings, and first time home buyers, Mayor Daley notes that usually the biggest roadblock is the financial commitment to get into that first home. He says “so here in Town we’ve been working with developers and stuff to be able to look at this and see what we can do to actually help with that overall price, and keep that price under $500,000 for those first home buyers.”
Increasing housing choice and filling in the “missing middle” category such as townhomes and rowhouses is also part of the housing strategy. Mayor Daley points out that he is very happy with the work the Town has done to attract developers to build this diverse type housing and moving forward he hopes “that what we see is everybody that wants a rental place or wants a first time home and/or maybe they want a retirement home, that we have an accommodation for them.”
