By Andru McCracken
According to a report to council, the Village of Valemount has negotiated a new ‘community benefit agreement’ with the Trans Mountain Pipeline and $135,000 will go towards developing new housing in Valemount.
Council had asked Mayor Owen Torgerson and Chief Administrative Officer Wayne Robinson to negotiate an agreement that reflected the current needs of the village.
“The intended result would be to make the development of the site to accommodate affordable housing,
seniors housing or supportive housing more economically feasible,” said the report.
The funding can be used to install a sewer line to the property and survey the land in order to support housing development.
Robinson said the previous agreement didn’t work for the village anymore.
“The original iteration was either things that were no longer relevant or things we had finished ourselves,” he said. “This will help to achieve a partial solution for one of our biggest problems in the community: housing.”
Aside from the $135,000 for housing, another $50,000 must be used to provide support to students in the trades, technology and environmental programs related to the pipeline industry.
