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UDI Wood Buffalo hoping to address council on FIFO and Bill 8

The Urban Development institute (UDI) of Wood Buffalo is hoping to address council on May 22 to discuss the fly in fly out workfoce (FIFO) and the tax ratio.

UDI Wood Buffalo represents the homebuilders and land developers in Fort McMurray. They believe that FIFO has caused a serious reduction in new development and housing starts in the city and Bill 8, which will see the municipal tax ratio raised, will make matters worse.

Gilles Huizinga, president of UDI Wood Buffalo told MyMcMurray that their biggest concerns are that FIFO coupled with the new tax ratio would see the malaise of the housing industry and equity of the homeowners.

“We’re advised that not all councilors see that as a problem and we as an industry see it not only as a problem, we see it as a very significant problem,” said Huzinga. “Without people coming to live here it will have a tremendous negative impact on our industry and the real estate body as a whole in Fort McMurray.”

UDI Wood Buffalo will be requesting council to take proactive steps to engage oil sands industry in discussions about FIFO, to encourage their workers to reside in Fort McMurray and use the city as its base of operations for commuting.  Ultimately, they would like to see council work with industry to ensure 65% of permanent staff be local, and live in the city.  They will also request council to work with the Government of Alberta and Industry to renegotiation and mitigate the increase of taxes.

To help meet these requests, UDI Wood Buffalo if offering to join in a task force.

They also met with the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Shaye Anderson, to discuss the tax ratio.  Going forward they wish to see continued discussion with Minister Anderson, council and Industry to ensure the community does not suffer any rate shocks through the implementation of Bill 8.