Yukon Housing offers loans for new rental suites

The Yukon Housing Corp. is encouraging more affordable rentalunits in Whitehorse's crowded housing market by offering low-interest loans to people who build detached suites on their properties.

A lack of affordable housing has been a serious problem in Yukon's capital city in recent years, especially for low-income residents and those who are new to the city.

Whitehorse city council is thinking of loosening restrictions on secondary homes, allowing homeowners to build small rental homes also known as garden suites on existing residential lots.

Housing officials announced Tuesday that they are offering loans of up to $25,000 for people to make those detached suites liveable.

"What we offer is a low-interest loan of up to $25,000 amortized over 10 years, and the technical advice to ... either renovate an existing suite to what we call legal standards, or to build a new one," Marc Perreault, the housing corporation's director of program delivery, toldCBCin Whitehorse on Tuesday.

Homeowners across the territory are eligible for the loans. Perreault said $150,000 has been budgeted for the program, but more money can be added if there is enough demand.

"The capital costs of building a new apartment building is high, and there's a lot of planning and a lot of design work that is required to do that. This is a good solution at this point in time," he said.

Yukon Housing already offers loans to those who add suites in their existing homes. The new loans' interest rate has been set at two points bellow the current five-year mortgage rate.

Perreault said the new loan program has no restrictions on who can be tenants in the new rental suites.

"The intent of the program is to encourage people to develop rental suites," he said. "We know that this type of development usually results in smaller, more affordable suites being developed, and we know there's a market for that right now."