Saskatoon City Council has approved all the recommendations required in order for Saskatoon to be eligible to receive federal funding through the Housing Accelerator Fund.

Last year, Saskatoon applied for the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, which would provide roughly $41 million to address housing supply. Ottawa then requested that the City make several zoning adjustments in order to receive the funding.

The recommendations, passed yesterday, followed an 18-hour Public Hearing in which 66 residents shared their opinion verbally and 391 residents submitted a written statement.

The passed recommendations include zoning amendments that allow for four dwelling units on a site in residential zoning districts and four-storey multiple-unit development within 800 metres of a planned bus rapid transit station, along with the streamlining of zoning regulations for Residential Care Homes.

City Council approved the recommendations despite hearing from Saskatoon citizens desperately trying to change their minds.

One resident and former lawyer at Saskatoon City Hall, Patricia Warwick, says a zoning change like this would be blowing up over 100 years of careful planning. She adds that the push for these changes is obviously a knee jerk reaction to a funding offer from Ottawa, and not a well-thought-out plan to address the city’s housing crisis.

“Please, please don’t do this. The federal government says these things. Who knows what the federal government means or doesn’t mean…Who knows? Please let’s be careful, let’s be considerate. Yeah, let’s rethink this.”

Another Saskatoon speaker, Elizabeth Snead, says a change of that magnitude is not worth the amount of money the city would receive.

“Just to give you an idea, we proposed to build one four-story building at the University of Saskatchewan, and that was going to cost $35 million, so $41 million is nothing.”

Mayor Charlie Clark says the changes will be gradual, and ongoing updates will be provided at saskatoon.ca/HAF.