The Association of Yukon Communities (AYC) is questioning cuts to rural residential land development in the 2023-24 territorial budget.

The AYC says the 2023-24 fiscal year budget, worth $1.938 billion, has cut funding for the development of residential land in rural Yukon by almost $7.5 million.

The reductions, which are equivalent to a 55-per-cent cut compared to the year before, come as the territory faces a shortage of housing and developed land.

Additionally, the budget has cut the land assessment and planning allocation by almost $1.4 million.

“We are disappointed and concerned that at a time when Yukon communities are facing shortages of land and housing that the Government of Yukon would cut the budget for rural residential land by more than half,” AYC president Ted Laking said Monday.

“Our rural municipalities require more investment, not less, and we hope that the Government of Yukon will reverse course on this budget cut and start giving rural Yukon the attention that it deserves.

“We are also concerned that the reduction of the land assessment and planning budget will mean delays to planning processes necessary for the release of commercial land in our communities,” Laking added.

In December 2022, the AYC board passed a housing policy requesting that the government develop and share a rural land development strategy, emphasizing the need for an increased supply in market and non-market housing in the communities.

That same month, the AYC wrote to the government and the legislature’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (PAC) to relay this request and share this policy.

“The decision to cut the budget to rural land development is especially odd considering that the Association of Yukon Communities wrote to the Government of Yukon last year requesting that they place more of a priority on rural land development through the development of a specific strategy,” Laking said.

During question period Monday, Yukon Party MLA Yvonne Clarke recalled that in March 2021, the Liberals promised to develop and release 1,000 lots over the course of their mandate if they were re-elected the following month.

Clarke questioned Community Services Minister Richard Mostyn as to how many lots have been released for sale and development – but didn’t receive an answer from the minister.

However, talking to reporters following question period, Mosytn supplied the following numbers:

2020-2021 fiscal year: 267 lots released in Whitehorse;

2021-2022: 101 in Whitehorse;

Early 2023-24: expecting 176 lots in Whitehorse.

The above lots are primarily in Whistle Bend.

Regarding rural lots, the numbers supplied by Mostyn are:

2016-17 to 2021-22: 71 lots built;

2018-19: 43;

2022-23: possibly up to 30 lots in Haines Junction, Ross River, Watson Lake, Faro, and Destruction Bay; and 2023-24: between 75 and 130 lots.

“So it’s ramping up as we go,” said Mostyn.

Asked about the cut to rural residential spending, Mostyn said, “We are, across the government, dealing with pulling back a little on our capital spend.

“Last year, we did an extraordinary job of spending a lot of money … there’s going to be very few lapses from last year.

“We had an absolute high-water mark as far as capital spending happened last year, so this year we’ve decided to take it back a notch, for a number of reasons.”

Mostyn cited restraint signals from the government and higher interest rates as reasons to be cautious with spending.

As for the increase in spending in Whitehorse, Mostyn replied, “Just a change in focus. We’ve identified what lots we can build in rural Yukon in the coming years … we have demand in Whitehorse, so we’re building those as well.

“We’re not giving up on rural Yukon,” the minister added.

“We have a better read on what we can get out the door in rural Yukon as well, so we’re just tailoring the budget to those expectations.”

Mostyn seemed to have trouble answering the question of whether the budget would meet the demand in rural Yukon, calling it an “interesting question.

“We have looked at the numbers and believe this is an accurate portrayal for the amount of lot development we can do in rural Yukon in the coming fiscal year.”

Mostyn recalled that he and Premier Ranj Pillai had a meeting with the AYC Monday morning.

“We talked about the need for land in rural Yukon – their expectations to get more land out. We’re working to do that.”

During his media scrum, Opposition Leader Currie Dixon read some concerns from AYC, then said, “They’ve been raising this for some time, that the government simply isn’t getting enough lots out in rural Yukon.

“And now in the budget, we see that that number has been cut significantly, so it’s difficult for the government to say this is a priority to get land out in rural Yukon, then turn around and cut the budget. I’m disappointed to see that in the budget, and I share the concerns raised by the AYC.”

Asked if he’s concerned about housing prices, Dixon said, “The absence of new lots being released only drives the price up. We know that we’re in a housing crunch right now. We need to see more lots released, more investment in development and unfortunately we’re seeing the opposite.”

Dixon added his party hears from rural constituents regularly that there is a lack of available land.

Regarding the government’s stated goal of releasing 1,000 lots during its current mandate, Dixon said, “We’re about midway through their term. They should be releasing a lot more land and lots, and they haven’t been doing that.”

He was asked why he thought Mostyn had a hard time answering questions during question period.

“I think the minister has shown a fairly strong disregard for the questions we’ve put forward to him,” Dixon said.

“For Yvonne Clarke, the MLA for Porter Creek Centre, which includes Whistle Bend, this is really important to her constituents and to her neighbourhood.

“Obviously, a significant number of lots are coming out in that neighbourhood, so it’s only fair to ask about that and I think it’s disrespectful to the legislature to simply ignore the question like that.”

NDP Leader Kate White raised a point about development cost versus market cost.

“Way back when, they used to sell lots for the cost of what it cost to develop, and then all of a sudden they start selling them for market and they went to whichever was higher, as opposed to before, whichever was lower,” White pointed out.

“And what we saw then was the Yukon government started to be part of the problem with the cost of land and land availability.”

White had her own take on the land problems plaguing the territory.

“It’s fine to budget money for things, whether it’s construction projects or land development projects, but the real question becomes, ‘why couldn’t it be completed? Why did the money lapse?’

“And the answer is here, it’s capacity. Having conversations with contractors, they say, ‘what we really need are trained operators,’ but is there a program in the Yukon that trains operators?”

White also questioned whether effective training programs exist for carpenters and electricians.

“We have to look at why that money was lapsed last year,” she said.

“We need to have a conversation with people on the ground who do the work to say, ‘why couldn’t we accomplish this?

What supports do you need in place to make sure we can get this work done?’”

White added, “Even if you have money, it doesn’t mean the work can get done, which means that then you have projects that lapse.

“I think the real answer is: how do we build capacity? How do we make sure we have the capabilities on the ground, the people able to do the work?”

White also pointed out that skilled workers need places to stay – further complicating the problems.

She added that the last number of apprentices in the Yukon government that YG gave her was four, and that there’s a shortage of heavy duty mechanics in the territory.

White also said she doesn’t think government employees should be in Yukon Housing Corp. units the way they are now.

“We should be looking at, ‘how do we support First Nations and development corporations or municipalities or others to build that capacity within their town?’

“Imagine having a property leased out and it’s a First Nation development corporation who’s benefiting from the Yukon government employee who’s living in that community?”

White added that there are opportunities for those partnerships.

“If we do want to support rural communities, we do have to have rural lot development.”

White added it’s a matter of working with communities to identify what they need and how they see it being implemented.

White stressed she favours more training programs.

“We don’t encourage and nurture the trades in the way that we should.”