The City of Flin Flon is hoping a bold new deal may help spur more land sales and new home builds in the community. Some lots owned by the City will be up for sale dirt cheap - for just one dollar per lot.
City council passed a new lot purchase agreement at their Sept. 17 council meeting, passing unanimously among members. The new deal will allow the City to make a drastic change on its policies around sale of infill lots. Starting this fall, the City will sell land lots used for residential builds for just one dollar apiece - provided the buyer meets several conditions, including a promise of building a residential property on the lot within a certain time.
A copy of the agreement obtained by The Reminder shows the conditions that go along with the new deal. The deal states that, if construction on the land is completed within two years of the closing date, the one dollar price would apply. The buyer also has to submit an application for a residential building permit that complies with building and zoning bylaws within six months and must apply for variances as required through the construction process. The buyer also has to cover costs of preparing relevant documents regarding taxes and sale - legal fees are not included in the one dollar buy price.
“Anybody who’s interested in building a new house on one of our lots? We’ll sell it to them for a dollar,” said councillor Mike Slipp.
“In six months, they have to have a plan; in two years, the building has to be built. If it’s not, the agreement is null and void.”
The deal does not apply for purchases of infill lots for commercial or business developments. Many of the lots available for purchase through the program are infill lots where homes that had been abandoned or left derelict, then demolished as part of the City’s urban renewal program. Application forms for lot purchases can be found at City Hall.
“This includes any lot that’s serviced in our community,” said City chief administrative officer Lyn Brown.
“There’s a fair number of vacant lots within our municipal boundaries, and some very nice ones - those are one dollar as well, as long as you have your permit within six months and you build within 24.”
The goal of the deal is to attract more single homeowners to buy lots and build within Flin Flon - and, in doing so, not only increase Flin Flon’s population but also its tax base, while reducing the number of possible eyesore, overgrown or abandoned lots.
“We’re prepared to look at whatever as long as it meets the criteria for a new home build,” said Brown.
“The one dollar is nothing compared to the taxes that we’d get once that place is built,” said Slipp.
“There’s almost no cost to step in. All we’re asking is you start paying taxes once you’ve got a building on the place,” said Mayor George Fontaine.
City executive staff also confirmed that prospective homebuyers who qualify for the City’s existing homebuyer assistance program - where the City will subsidize the down payment for interested homebuyers who meet with certain laid-out conditions - can qualify for the program and also buy an infill lot to build on through the new lot purchase deal, under certain circumstances. The homebuyer program does not apply over a certain assessed property value - if the property value of the new home is below that, a buyer might in theory be able to apply for both.
Other points brought up include whether a potential buyer could buy two conjoining lots for two dollars - Fontaine said such deals would need to be discussed within the City and with bylaw officer Ted Elliott, but he felt such measures might be approvable.
“If it's a positive move for this community, we will look at it seriously,” said Fontaine.
“I'm not worried whether it's $1 or $2 - that's a token figure. I’m just thinking, if we can make it work, we will. That's the whole idea behind this. We want to be and come across as open for business, so we'll see what it takes. If it's serious business, that's what we're in.”
Flin Flon’s housing market has been active even despite the 2022 closure of 777 mine and much of parent company Hudbay’s local operations - but most of the commerce around Flin Flon real estate has involved buying or selling existing homes, not building new ones from scratch. Fontaine said he hopes the new deal can spur new builds, be a signal that Flin Flon’s post-Hudbay downturn has slowed and be a sign of a new economic period.
“One of the needs the community has is to prove itself, that we're coming back. There was a downturn and when a company does what this one did and leaves town, a lot of people had a lot of apprehension about values and that sort of thing,” said Fontaine.
“I think this town has leveled off. I think it's ready to go in a forward position and I think we can rebuild ourselves with a lot of these initiatives. We don't need to be a huge metropolis. We have to be a healthy community.”
“We do already have people moving in, which is all part of this. There are lots of opportunities right now - there are organisations such as Foran or even Hudbay who are hiring more people. If we would like those people to live here and this is their home base, rather than living in another community, however far away it may be, we want to be attractive to them,” said Brown.
“Homeownership in Flin Flon is more affordable than it is in places like Saskatoon, Winnipeg or almost anywhere, because our home prices are affordable. If we can make lots affordable as well, then new homes can be built.”
