Council rejects residents’ fears that “single men” are an unsightly menace

City Hall | Paul Dechene | Feb. 10, 2022

A controversial housing project slated for 120 Broad Street will be going forward thanks to an eight-to-three vote at city council’s Feb. 2 meeting.

The project will be led by Indigenous organizations as the city accepted the proposal to build 29 supportive housing units submitted by Silver Sage Holdings Ltd. (SSH) and Regina Treaty/Status Indian Services (RTSIS). The bulk of the funding — $7.7 million — comes from the federal Rapid Housing Initiative, with the city contributing the land (assessed at $1.5 million) and the province providing a $783,000 forgivable loan.

The Rapid Housing Initiative is a billion-dollar federal effort to quickly expand the amount of affordable housing in the country. As such, the project is operating on a compressed timeline. The city received approval for their proposal just last November and residents are expected to be able to move into a completed building by Dec. 1 of this year.

Controversy began to swirl around the project almost as soon as the city announced the site selected for it. Residents near 120 Broad Street say they felt blindsided as that location was expected to become seniors housing run by Eden Care. That project was put on indefinite hold in 2017.

Further concerns were raised about the type of residents who would be moving into the RTSIS/Silver Sage apartments. At executive committee, delegations worried that the facility would house high risk residents who might be a danger (or just unsightly) for the students at a neighbouring school.

Much was made of the possibility of “single men” living in the apartments.

However, according to RTSIS, residents in the Broad Street apartments would be low-income individuals and families who have experienced barriers to housing but who have been working with RTSIS for up to a year to transition out of housing instability. Programs and supports will be available on-site to help apartment residents with their transition.

Conditions on the federal money requires that a minimum of the apartment residents be women or women and their children, and that a minimum of the units be for indigenous residents.

While city administration had to keep the negotiations for the Broad Street property private until the purchase had gone through, they have committed to supporting community consultation through the design and development phase of the project.

City Council Fires
City Manager

People were e-mailing me on Feb. 7, asking, “What’s up with this surprise council meeting today?” I didn’t know. There was no report. It had appeared like magic on the schedule a day earlier.

Turns out, holy crap: council was getting together to vote on whether to dismiss city manager Chris Holden. After holding an hour-long, private discussion, councillors voted overwhelmingly to let their top civil servant go. Only Councillor Andrew Stevens voted to keep him on. (Councillor Dan LeBlanc was not at the meeting.)

The city will conduct a nation-wide search for a replacement that could take up to nine months. In the interim, city clerk Jim Nicol will be acting city manager.

Holden’s dismissal comes on the heels of a tense Jan. 26 executive committee meeting in which Councillor Terina Shaw forcefully expressed her lack of trust in the information administration was providing around the search for a rapid housing project location. Notably, Masters did not intercede during that exchange to defend her city manager and Shaw was never expected to apologize for questioning administration’s reliability.

It’s hard to not run a length of yarn between those two thumb tacks.

But according to media reports, Masters says council is heading in a new service-focussed strategic direction with things like its forthcoming Transformation Office, and it made sense for a change in leadership at this time.

Holden worked for the city for 40 years, working first as a lifeguard as a teenager and working his way up through the parks and communications departments before becoming city manager in 2016.

Council thanked him for his years of service.