The Yukon Party is questioning Community Services Minister Richard Mostyn over what it calls his “failure” to get new housing lots to market.

But the minister counters that the official Opposition is completely wrong in its comments, and that there are irrefutable plans to prepare 206 lots territory-wide this year.

“Despite numerous promised timelines, the minister has furthered delayed the construction of new lots in Phase 9 of Whistle Bend,” the YP said in a statement Tuesday.

“In May of 2021, the minister told the legislative assembly, “we anticipate tendering phase 8 and 9 lots this year.

“Then, in December 2021, the government told the public that phase 9 would go to lottery in the fall of 2022. When it became obvious that the minister was going to miss yet another promised deadline, he told the public that the tendering of phase 9 would not happen until the fall of 2022.”

The closing date on the tender for phase 9 lots has been extended twice, “with no indications when the contract will finally be awarded,” the party said.

“Nor is there any indication when these lots will be available for release.”

Opposition housing critic Yvonne Clarke said Mostyn “has had a hard time living up to the promises he’s been making to get residential lots to market.

“The delays to phase 9 follow delays to phase 7 after the minister cancelled the tender in 2021. Those are in addition to the ongoing delays to phase 6 that prevented those lots from release last year,” Clarke said.

“The minister needs to live up to his commitment to the contracting community and Yukoners who are looking to build in Whistle Bend.”

Last year, she recalled, the minister promised to get 150 lots to market in Whistle Bend in 2023.

“We are now into the spring tendering season, and the window to make this happen is quickly closing.”

Mostyn said in an interview later Tuesday the government is expecting to have 206 lots ready for market around the territory in the coming fiscal year.

That will include 124 for Whistle Bend this spring, followed by another 57 later on, and 25 for rural Yukon.

“We are confident we will get those out to lottery,” Mostyn told the Star.

As well, the government and the Liard First Nation have signed an agreement that will see 43 new serviced residential lots developed on Frances Avenue in Watson Lake (see story, p. 9).

Whistle Bend phase 9A will go out to tender March 28, Mostyn said.

That work will include underground utilities, sewer and water infrastructure, surface work, and concrete and asphalt placement.

Depending on weather conditions, contractor availability and unanticipated complications, the loose target date to substantially complete the lots is October 2023.

Overall, the development schedule calls for the entire subdivision to be finished in four to six years, the minister indicated.

At that point, the total investment in Whistle Bend would be an estimated $300 million, yielding 2,000 lots, some of them multi-residential.