Saskatoon home builders breathe a sigh of relief. Brad Wall is offering students an incentive for home buying.
Quote:
Saskatchewan Party pledges new program to help 1st time home buyers
Graduate Retention Program to be directed towards down payment
CBC News Posted: Mar 14, 2016 2:29 PM CT Last Updated: Mar 15, 2016 10:16 AM CT
Brad Wall announced that, if re-elected, the Sask. Party has a plant to make buying your first home easier. (Don Somers/CBC)
The Saskatchewan Party announced a plan to make first time home purchases easier.
Brad Wall made the announcement in Saskatoon on Monday, pledging to bring the program forward if the Sask. Party is re-elected next month.
"Young people were saying to me and to our MLAs 'You know the challenge we have though sometimes, especially with a strong economy, is being able to afford that down payment on our first home or maybe a first condo'," Wall said.
"That's important from a growth perspective for the province because it's important for Saskatchewan young people to choose here, to choose to work here."
The new First Home Plan would allow Graduate Retention Program recipients to use up to $10,000 of their unused GRP benefits toward the down payment on the purchase of a first home.
A Sask. Party spokesperson clarified that for a person looking to use the program, he or she would get an advance of an interest-free loan, the amount for which would be whatever is unused from that person's GRP amount, up to a maixmum of $10,000.
If that person keeps the house for four years, then he or she doesn't have to repay the loan, the spokesperson said.
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Source
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskat...ouse-1.3491103
Turning to municipal affairs with Mayor Don Atchison
October, adios Atch.
Mayor questions cost of clearing bike lanes
StarPhoenix reporter Phil TankPHIL TANK, SASKATOON STARPHOENIX
Published on: March 21, 2016 | Last Updated: March 21, 2016 8:20 PM CST
The bike lane on 23rd Street East at First Avenue on March 4, 2016.
GREG PENDER / SASKATOON STARPHOENIX
The cost of clearing snow from protected bike lanes seems out of proportion with the number of people using them, Saskatoon Mayor Don Atchison says.
Atchison called attention to a proposed increase in the cost of clearing snow from the bike lanes and transit terminal on 23rd Street by nearly $50,000, to $125,000.
The mayor, who alone opposed the bike lane pilot project, estimated the cost of clearing the bike paths broke down to about $10,000 for each block of bike lane.
That seems unfair when you consider the shortcomings of residential snow removal, he suggested.
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“I think most people would love to have $8,000 to $10,000 of snow clearing on their street every year,” he said.
Don Cook, the City of Saskatoon’s manager of long-range planning, said the number of cyclists using that stretch of 23rd Street has more than doubled, from fewer than 50 before the lanes were installed last spring to more than 100 riders a day last fall.
Cook said the two-year pilot project is not being judged solely on how many people are using the bike lanes. He noted there has been no public feedback on reduced parking availability due to the lanes.
The city is not making daily counts of riders, Cook said.
“It was my understanding that we were going to count those riders,” Coun. Troy Davies said.
Davies said he’s already concerned about the second phase of the project, which would install protected bike lanes along Fourth Avenue downtown sometime this spring.
Davies noted snow removal on 23rd Street was lacking early in the season, but Cook said that was due to a contractor who has since been replaced.
Council approved increasing the snow removal budget to $125,000; Atchison voted against it.
Council approved increasing the snow removal budget to $125,000; Atchison voted against it.
His criticism came on the same day the
Calgary Herald published a commentary by a cycling blogger who visited Saskatoon and called the bike lane on 23rd Street a “failed piece of infrastructure.”
Source
ptank@postmedia.com
twitter.com/thinktankSK