Councillors in Wetaskiwin again debated the contentious emergency homeless shelter project on Monday.
In April 2023, council approved a land donation to Hope Mission and received $3.2 million in funding from the province for a new permanent Hope Mission emergency shelter that would replace the current temporary one and offer other social services to help vulnerable people in Wetaskiwin.
In May, council approved the development permit for the facility based on a preliminary site plan.
However, in December, council heard about another possible project nearby and pushed to delay the Hope Mission one. Then, a 120-day “pause” was put on the project.
But councillors were reminded by administration on Monday that “there are no legal means by which city council can direct administration to delay the building permit to the Hope Mission.”
“The city’s building permits are authorized by superior safety codes and can be issued as a result of the development permit that council approved in May 2023. It should be noted that the building permit has been issued to Hope Mission.”
One councillor’s motion to hire a mediator to “find common ground” with Hope Mission was defeated Monday.
However, a later motion to have city council “reconsider the acceptance of Hope Mission’s proposal to cap shelter bed capacity at 50 emergency beds” was carried.
As far as the Hope Mission is aware, it can start building the permanent shelter at any time, but the agency would prefer to do so with the city’s blessing.
“We have a development permit that was in place since May, and now we have a building permit for the foundation that’s been put in place by city management, but council’s got a 120-day hold, they’re trying to hold up the project, do some more investigations, get more on the same page on some of the numbers,” said Kelly Row, who is the chaplain with Wetaskiwin Hope Mission and handles community engagement.
“We’re kind of in limbo. We want to move ahead with the project, but we want council on board with us.
“We could go ahead and build anytime we want now, but we’d prefer to have all community partners, the council on board, people comfortable with our proposal so we can go ahead building without controversy, without other sorts of backlash,” Row said.
Some citizens raised concerns about the size of the permanent shelter. They also said they were worried about crime and social disorder.
In response to those concerns, Hope Mission offered to limit shelter capacity to 50-60 beds.
“That’s more of a process where we want to appease the community,” Row said on Monday. “The worry in the community is we’re going to have — with the transitional housing in Phase 2 and a shelter capacity — we could have over 150 people, or whatever number they came up with.
“We want to let them know we’re not looking at building some shelter with all this capacity. We want to meet the needs of the people in our area and be in good standing with the citizens in Wetaskiwin.
“We continue to just do the work, day by day, over at the shelter with the clients that we’re serving and continue to focus on that.”
City of Wetaskiwin Coun. Karen Aberle spoke to Global News after council wrapped up late Monday evening.
“This is a very important topic,” she said. “We just would really like our community to continue to engage with us. … We’re committed to continuing to have these conversations with our community members.”
Aberle confirmed council unanimously approved the Hope Mission development permit last spring.
“Things are very much where they were. The development permit was approved … so it will continue and is still valid at this time.
“There was a motion (Monday) where we would discuss further the building permit of Hope Mission. It was brought back up today. Administration explained that it is not council, it is our building permit people … that OKs building permits, so that was not going to be a part of the discussions because that is not under the purview of council.
“During those discussions that administration was having and Hope Mission was included in it, there was a suggestion that came from Hope Mission that they would be wiling to talk about limiting the emergency bed capacity to 50-60 beds,” Aberle said.
“Another motion was brought up to accept a 50-bed limit for the emergency shelter portion of the Hope Mission project.”
Row admitted the drama and politics have become a bit of a distraction and have certainly delayed construction.
“We were hoping to have, last fall, be with shovels in the ground, when we got the building permit in May,” he said. “But then the hold was put on in September and then after council and administration did some instantiation into if they could hold up the project or not.
“We didn’t want to rush ahead.
“The sooner we can build the facility, the better for the people we’re serving, that’s what we’re in it for. Hope Mission is in it to help the people who are struggling. The longer we wait in the temporary shelter isn’t ideal for us.”
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