Mayor’s land policy reform ideas defeated

Mayor Bev Buckway had the door slammed shut on her attempt Monday night to remove cornerstone features of the city’s new policy governing land sales.

Mayor Bev Buckway had the door slammed shut on her attempt Monday night to remove cornerstone features of the city’s new policy governing land sales.

And Coun. Ranj Pillai suggested it’s time the city expand its view of the world when it comes to subdivision development.

Included in the updated policy adopted unanimously is a new requirement that applicants for a city land lottery be a resident of the Yukon for at least six months. There’s also a new clause which forbids successful applicants from entering another lottery within two years.

Council members put forward those recommendations themselves during development of the new policy this summer, as a means of trying to maximize opportunities for regular citizens to get land.

Imposing tougher measures to do away with commercial developers recruiting family and friends to enter the lottery and tip the odds in their favour would be too difficult to enforce and administer, council has been told by senior city staff.

Buckway, however, pointed out at Monday’s meeting the city’s land policy is supposed to be based on the principle of providing a “fair” process for land sales.

Restricting lotteries to residents of six months or longer, and prohibiting previously successful applicants, does not add up to fair, the mayor argued.

Coun. Doug Graham said without the new restrictions, future lotteries are potentially open to reams of applications from relatives down south. That, he insisted, would be an affront to council’s commitment to maximize local opportunity.

Buckway’s proposed amendment was voted down by all six councillors.

There was, however, a significant change in the policy since committee discussions last week.

The draft policy provided council with an opportunity to review bids for commercial properties when the prices came within five per cent of each other, so that council had the opportunity to weigh one against the other.

Upon an objection registered by Graham and accepted by the rest of council, the provision was removed, and the sale of commercial properties is now based solely on bid price.

The new policy is now in effect.

Land sales will be based on the appraised value of lots.

Coun. Florence Roberts argued during committee discussions last week that using appraised value alone would not halt the skyrocketing prices of land in the city.

Something more needs to be done to protect affordability, she insisted, suggesting prices could perhaps be established using a blend of appraised value and the lower tax assessment for properties.

In the recent Grove Street lottery, 158 applications were received for seven properties ranging in appraised value of between $120,000 and $130,000, depending on size.

City officials estimate the cost of developing each lot at approximately $92,000, including the $31,500 per lot the city paid to YTG for the land.

Graham said last week he does not like the scenario of using appraised value to establish prices, particularly since the city and Yukon government are responsible for inflating the cost of land by not ensuring a steady inventory of lots over the years.

But using appraised value as a bench mark for lottery sales is the only neutral and consistent way to go about it that he knows of, he said.

Pillai, one of two rookie councillors elected last fall, suggested there may have been a time when it was impractical to rely on private developers to carry the capital cost of subdivision development on speculation; when it only made sense for the Yukon government to finance and manage the construction of major projects like Copper Ridge.

Pillai said that is not the case anymore. In the last week alone, he told his council colleagues, he’s learned of at least two private developers and two First Nations corporations who would be interested in the opportunity.

It’s time the city and YTG sit down to discuss private land development, he said.

Those discussions, Pillai emphasized, need to happen soon.

He suggested privatizing development is a means of putting lot prices into competitive hands.

But it’s also an opportunity for the city to live up to commitments made through aboriginal land claims to provide first nations with economic development opportunities, he said.

Phase two of the city’s Takhini North development is expected to be ready for a land lottery late next month, as is the Yukon government’s new Ingram subdivision next to the Arkell subdivision.