Affordable/Attainable Housing

After reading both documents it seems to me that these are just the preliminary reports. According to the Scoping Report: "In March 2007, the City of Fernie engaged CitySpaces Consulting to analyze the current housing situation and to develop a strategy to ... address issues of affordable housing". So these 2 reports only provide the initial analysis. The 3rd phase of the study will be to identify housing policy options and implementation strategies (according to the phase 2 report intro). The reports don't yet offer any recommendations or even an analysis of what options are available to Fernie and what has worked (or not) in other communities faced with similar problems. I suppose we'll have to wait until the 3rd phase report for the real meat. The Needs Assessment report does suggest two top housing priorities: (1) Low income individuals & families, and (2) first time home-buyers with children and less than $60,000 income.

Why do we have to wait? Why can't we do something ourselves? If the initial reports don't show anything surprising, then do you think there will be any newsflashes in the next one? I doubt it. We all know what needs to be done, just needs someone with the financial and political clout to step up and do it.

A monkey...if it were capable of speech, could have told the City Of Fernie exactly what this "report" (which cost god knows how many tax dollars) does for free a year ago. Everybody already knew everthing in this report years ago. It's just another example of bureaucracy, bunch of double talk and paperwork with no real action. I've come to expect nothing less from this mayor and council.

I agree, so far the reports have told us nothing we didn't already know. Hopefully the next report will provide some actionable information for council to implement. But I'm sure it won't be anything we couldn't have figured out on our own without going to some consulting group on the coast (what happened to shopping local?)

Sure there are no big surprises in the reports, but unfortunately this stuff needs to be formally documented in order to move forward with policy decisions and to justify any funding that might be forthcoming. No government or private company is going to fund major projects without backing research & data, even if the results seem obvious to you and me. And if city council just went ahead and took some action without these reports, they would be surely be criticized for making policy or spending decisions without adequate study. So the reports are needed to justify whatever action city council eventually does take.

why couldn't we generate these reports locally? why did we have to hire someone from the coast to analyze our situation when we already know it best?

trailhead, that was exactly the point of my first post - that we needed the stats to be able to get on with anything. So now we have them, what are we waiting for???

Ryland, I agree we should have had someone local, but I believe the account went out to tender - did anyone local apply for it?

Alba, the point I was trying to make is that CitySpaces has so far only defined Fernie's housing problem in numerical terms -- stats, stats, stats. They haven't yet studied the range of potential solutions or made any recommendations based on a review of what other communities have done successfully. And after all, that's really what they're being paid for, to recommend policy alternatives and a course of action for our city, based on our own circumstances and needs. A housing co-operative is just one possible solution among many. The Revelstoke housing study list some of the difficulties with establishing housing co-ops. (http://www.cityofrevelstoke.com/pdf/RevelstokeAffHousingStudy.pdf). I'm all for getting people together in a *serious* attempt to find solutions -- not a forum for petulant whiners to blame Albertans and the mayor for the current situation. But it seems to me that we should be working with knowledgeable people like CitySpaces consultants, not separately from them -- and we shouldn't dismiss offhand their knowledge, input and experience just because they're not Fernie locals. CitySpaces were hired to help us, so that we don't have to re-invent the wheel when it comes to affordable housing. I guess some people just have an aversion to any outside help, or maybe they feel that anything that city council does must be boneheaded and useless. So why did CitySpaces get this contract? Well for one thing they do have experience in doing this sort of work. Have a look at the report they prepared for Canmore in 2003(http://www.canmorehousing.ca/pdffiles/completefinalreport.pdf). I wouldn't be surprised if they re-used some of this material for the Fernie final report.

The Revelstoke housing report is also a good reference for Fernie in that it lists different objectives, recommendations, responsibilities and associated costs (http://www.cityofrevelstoke.com/pdf/RevAffHousingStrategy-FINAL.pdf). My suggestion if people are keen to get a head start on this is that we request a meeting with CitySpaces to get an idea of what they think could work in Fernie and what they intend to recommend to council in their final report.

Trailhead, you're totally right.

Meet with them. Not only do they know how to present the figures, but they also know how to grease the wheels and the pitfalls of any program. I know this sounds confrontational, but "know your enemy", or rather, know your opposing numbers' priorities, ideology and strengths.

Get in contact with the people in those other towns that Cityspaces did work for. Find out what failed and what worked.
Use Cityspaces to push YOUR agenda.
If a consultant can be seen to not only provide the data that the town councillors want to see, but also seems to rally the townspeople behind them, then they cannot disagree with what is proposed by both.

You might not be able to stop any floods, but you sure as heck can channel them by concerted efforts.