Community consultation, planning and design for a seniors housing project in Blackfalds will be able to commence next year after council formally entered a partnership with the Lacombe Foundation, which is the housing management body for an area that spans from Eckville to Alix.

The foundation contracts the Bethany Group, a non-profit, to provide housing and health services.

Former Blackfalds mayor Melodie Stol is now the stakeholder relations advisor for the Bethany Group and says, with all three parties on board, they can now apply for a $50,000 grant from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation to do the necessary preliminary work.

Last year, the town purchased about an acre of land at the corner of Broadway Avenue and South Street for the housing project.

Stol says seniors housing has been a long-standing need.

“Blackfalds always found itself a victim of its own success. Very young community, lots of young families and you can see always the priorities tended to fall towards getting new schools constructed, getting the new Parent Link centre here, just because the population, of course, needed that,” she says.

“But we could never really forget about our seniors. The need has been there to try and get some sort of facilities here so that seniors have a better chance to stay and age in their communities.”

A project schedule adopted by council states the project would go to tender in 2019, with the contract awarded the same year. Residents would be selected in 2020 with occupancy in 2021.