'The start of something': Here's how this Sask. town is attracting new residents with a $30,000 incentive

The Town of Moosomin has decided to provide a $30,000 housing incentive to any new builders in the community, and an additional $8,000 for every door after.

The incentive applies to anyone building a new apartment building, condo, or multi-family housing development. With a population sitting around the 2,700 mark – according to the 2021 census – the town is currently in the process of building a new water treatment plant to accommodate a growth of 4,600 people.

“We've been working relatively hard on growing the community with several different initiatives over the last few years,” explained Coun. Murray Gray.

“We’ve had some wins between paving the airport, adding the daycare, some other things within the community which has been good, but we haven't been able to do any additions to our housing inventory so this makes sense that this is the next step."

Builders will be paid the incentive upon receiving their occupancy permit.

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Gray said there are currently 40 new homes that qualify for the program – including two 12-unit apartment buildings being built on South Front Street.

“The [federal government’s] goal for us is to add 43 doors in our community in order to qualify for the grant,” Gray told CTV News.

“That’s retro back to the day that the announcement of the application. We’ve already got some doors added in the meantime, while we've been waiting for the money to come through. We're only shy, I think, about 20 doors right now.”

Two 12-unit apartment buildings in Moosomin currently qualify for the community's new $30,000 Housing Incentive program. (Sierra D'Souza Butts/CTV News)

The idea for the program was created by several groups in town shortly after receiving a grant of $992,000 from the federal Housing Accelerator Fund. Only two other municipalities in Saskatchewan received funding this year; the Town of Outlook and City of Humboldt.

“The housing incentive was created by the Economic Development Committee which includes representatives of the Community Builders Alliance (CBA), the Town of Moosomin, and the RM of Moosomin,” said CBA member Kevin Weedmark, who also serves as the Moosomin Chamber of Commerce’s president.

“It's a unique collaboration that has a private group working with public groups to come up with ideas to benefit the entire community. All of these groups are tied together working to improve Moosomin.”

Weedmark said the incentive is part of the community’s long-term goal for increasing its population.

“This is federal funding that the town is receiving to help spur growth, where the town is turning that funding around and giving it to everyone who wants to build a home [in Moosomin]. That’s how we’re trying to encourage it,” he said.

“It’s the start of something that that may not end with this grant. I think what the town is going to discover is that by investing that $30,000 into each new house, they're going to make that money back.

Weedmark went on to say the taxes coming in from each new house are going to help pay for the cost of the program and keep the town’s expansion going.

The town’s Economic Development Officer Casey McCormac added that the goal of the incentive is to attract new people to the area.

"We're definitely hoping to attract new residents, new young families, people that are willing to work the jobs that we need, such as daycare jobs or hospital jobs, things that we are looking for,” she explained.

"This incentive helps Moosomin with the fact that we have a ton of commercial construction going on, but there's no where for those people looking for those jobs to live. Right now we have many people that are living outside of Moosomin and surrounding towns because there's no where in Moosomin to live, to rent or to own."

McCormac added that the housing incentive applies to any new residential building permit issued since Aug. 21, 2023.