Local employers continue to feel the burn by the lack of affordable rental housing in Cochrane.
As employers such as Tim Horton’s, Wal-Mart and the Spray Lake Sawmills (SLS) continue to grow and seek new employees, the housing crunch poses a challenge for all of them.
While purchasing housing developments for staff accommodation solutions may present itself as an option in the future, the return of investment (ROI) is less than appealing in the current real estate market.
With the recent influx of businesses, particularly around the Quarry site, pressure is on the Town of Cochrane, as well as their authority on affordable housing, the Cochrane Society for Housing Options (CSHO) to begin coming up with more solutions.
“There’s a number of things we’ve been doing,” said Kathy Dietrich, senior manager of planning and engineering with the Town of Cochrane.
“We’ve always been very supportive of accessory suites in Cochrane (when compared to other municipalities)…we’ve revised R2 zoning to include townhouses (in addition to single family and semi-detached homes).”
Dietrich said while the base of more entry-level homes for purchase have opened up across developments in Cochrane, the town is not oblivious to the low rental vacancy rates and said “the onus is on us to have to provide a number of options for people”.
She said the town would continue to support CSHO and look to diverse housing options.
Corinne Burns, housing coordinator for CSHO said they have seen “a significant increase in inquiries for housing over the past six months”; the CSHO owns 21 units and manages four units for the Town of Cochrane — all of which are rented out at 10 per cent below market value to qualifying candidates.
Howard Pruden, manager of human resources for the SLS, is hopeful that with the arrival of spring will follow more availability in the rental market.
Of the SLS’s 197 employees, only five are a part of the foreign worker program — while about half of their online applications are from outside of Cochrane, many of them from outside of Canada.
As part of the foreign worker program, employers are responsible for connecting these workers with affordable housing, which doesn’t exceed more than 30 per cent of the individual’s income.
Pruden said the SLS is hoping to fill another 20 vacancies this year and in past years, the SLS has had to stage corporate housing as part of their temporary solutions and may have to do so again in the future.
“The town has to take initiative on ownership of that (problem),” said Pruden, who sat on a Monitoring and Implementation Authority for the Affordable Housing Committee, which disbanded following a Feb. 24 council presentation, adding that the entirety of affordable housing is “a very complex issue”.
Nancy Etcheverry is the owner of both Tim Horton’s locations in Cochrane. She has been a part of the Cochrane community for some 20 years and a franchise owner for more than 12 years; a third Cochrane location for the coffee giant is slated to open sometime later this year in the community of Fireside.
Etcheverry said the housing crunch has certainly “impacted our ability to expand”. This ability is further impacted by the influx of businesses in the retail and service sectors that have opened in Cochrane.
“We don’t get a lot of applications, there’s not a lot of movement…we’re always hiring,” she laughed, adding that she doesn’t see any immediate relief in what has become a provincial crisis — and the price of real estate does not make purchasing housing for staff accommodation a viable option.
The staffing for Etcheverry’s businesses are a 60/40 full/part-time split of her 80 staff members; Tim Horton’s offers flexible shifts and a competitive benefits package to attract more employees.
“I’ve been in Alberta for 15 years and I’ve worked with Wal-Mart for eight years,” said Wal-Mart general manager, Sean Gaudet. “What I’ve noticed with outlying communities (like Cochrane) is that we have the hardest time with staff.”
Gaudet said the high turnover rate in his industry is “the nature of the business…you have to start at the bottom in retail and work your way up” and that the housing crunch has impacted many of the families he employs; 99 per cent of Wal-Mart’s staff lives in Cochrane.
He said that Wal-Mart would never go down the route of staff accommodation, with the close proximity of a major city centre and the lack of a ROI in the real estate market.
“How we structure this store is working as a team,” explained Gaudet, adding that the high cost of living results in businesses such as his having to be more flexible in their shifts to accommodate family life and staff with second jobs.
Wal-Mart also offers competitive benefits packages.
