Feds announce $1.4 billion loan for Squamish Nation’s Senakw project
Dan Fumano
The Vancouver Sun
The Sen̓áḵw project will provide rental homes for both Squamish Nation members as well as non-Indigenous residents.
Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw Council Chairperson Khelsilem chats with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at an announcement for Squamish Nation’s Sen̓áḵw development in Kitsilano on Tuesday, Sept. 6. The federal government announced a $1.4 billion low-interest construction loan for the project. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNG
The government of Canada will help finance the Squamish First Nation’s Sen̓áḵw development in Kitsilano by providing a $1.4 billion low-interest construction loan.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the loan Tuesday morning at a news conference hosted by Squamish Nation on the site of the planned project.
“This project is the largest First Nations economic partnership in Canadian history. Initiatives like these are reconciliation in action,” Trudeau said. “It’s part of our vision for a better future for everyone.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces a $1.4 billion low-interest construction loan for Squamish Nation’s Sen̓áḵw project on Tuesday, Sept. 6. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNG
The Sen̓áḵw project is slated to be a high-density development with 6,000 homes in 11 towers, built on a four-hectare patch — equivalent to about four city blocks — of reserve land around the south end of the Burrard Bridge. The loan announced Tuesday will finance the construction of the first two of four planned phases of the project, about 3,000 homes.
The low-interest loan will be the largest loan so far provided through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s rental construction financing program, which was launched in 2017 to support rental construction across Canada with a target of more than 71,000 new rental homes.
The Squamish Nation reclaimed the property, a small piece of what was a longtime First Nations community in the area, in 2003 after a long legal battle. Sen̓áḵw is being developed by the Squamish First Nation in partnership with Westbank, one of Vancouver’s biggest real-estate development firms, and initial work on clearing the site began last month.
The Sen̓áḵw project has been publicly praised by municipal, provincial and now federal leaders, as well as many Vancouverites who welcome the large number of transit-oriented rental homes close to downtown. But some residents, including in the low-density Kits Point neighbourhood next to Sen̓áḵw, have raised concerns about the size and scale of the development, which will include towers of up to 59 storeys.
Asked how he would respond to those concerns and whether residents of Canada’s big urban centres should expect more similar high-density developments in the future, Trudeau said he has heard from many Vancouverites affected by housing unaffordability.
“This investment, this creation of thousands upon thousands of new affordable rental units — a number of them low-income rental units — is going to make a huge difference in the lives of thousands of families.
“That will be a big step forward for Vancouver,” Trudeau said. “And I know that this is a good thing for the city, the province, and for the country.”
Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw Council Chairperson Khelsilem speaks during a press conference for Squamish Nation’s Sen̓áḵw project. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNG
The affordability criteria for the CMHC’s rental construction financing initiative states that 20 per cent of a development’s units must have below-market rents. Of the 6,000 rental homes at Sen̓áḵw, the Squamish Nation is planning for 1,200 units — or 20 per cent — to have below-market rents.
Khelsilem, chair of the Squamish Nation council, began his remarks by acknowledging the Squamish families who lived on the site and were forcibly evicted in the early 20th century when the village was burnt down.
Khelsilem said that when the entity today known as the Squamish Nation formed in 1923 out of the amalgamation of 16 different bands, they combined their financial accounts together, and “all their financial wealth that had been gathered up to that point, today it would have been worth approximately $1.2 million.”
The Sen̓áḵw project is expected to generate more than $10 billion for future generations of the Squamish Nation, Khelsilem said. “Wealth that we will generate from our lands to support the aspirations, the dreams, the hopes of Squamish people … The hope that I think every culture has, that the next generation will have a better life than the one we did.”
© 2022 Vancouver Sun