The City of Weyburn is on the right track, as city council approved a newly-revised Weyburn Builds incentive program, and added a new feature, a show home incentive, both with the goal of encouraging economic growth in the city with construction activities.
Contrast this to the federal housing announcement of a couple of weeks ago, when $6 billion in federal funding was announced, but the funding comes with conditions that will limit how those funds can be used.
For Weyburn, the programs are an incentive to help people do exterior renovations on older homes, or to build a new home or move in an RTM on a vacant lot.
With the number of vacant lots, including lots where a previous home was demolished or removed, this is a good incentive for home-builders, contractors and residents to take a look at possibly building a new home.
The original program’s intent is also still intact, in that grant incentives are provided for owners of older homes to do exterior renovations to help improve the look of the home and improve the property values.
New for this year is the show home incentive program, which previously could be found in larger urban centres like Regina and Saskatoon, but not many centres outside of that.
With this program, a home-builder or contractor can put up a show home on a vacant lot, and get a full rebate on the taxes for up to three years. In that time, the public is able to come and see the home that the builder is offering to put up. An alternative, which a number of councillors seemed to support, is a spec home, which can be built like show home, except that it can be moved into by a new owner.
If a spec home is sold and the new owners move in, then the incentive (which is for the builder) ends.
The difference is a show home is there for the public to see but no one is allowed to live in it. The spec home is ready to move into, and would no longer be a show home as soon as that happens.
With these programs, it is up to the public, or a builder or contractor, to decide to expend the money and make an improvement on an older home, or to have new development (or an RTM) on a vacant lot.
Where the federal program is concerned, there is a lot of red tape involved and conditions before a province will even be allowed to access the funds, and this may restrict how much of that money actually ends up being used to build new homes.
The smart way to go is “let the market decide”, and this is true for virtually every facet of life and the economy. The hope is, in Weyburn, that this will stimulate economic activity, create jobs and new places to live for residents, while making Weyburn better all the way around.
