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BUSINESS NEWS
Wednesday, June 4, 2014 Terrace Standard
$1M land sale prompts focus on housing
STAFF PHOTO
TYSHEINA MCCOY and Clay Pountney from Core Recruitment in Prince George.
Job connections sought A PRINCE GEORGE-BASED recruiting company says it’s out to bridge the gap between people looking for work and companies looking for employees. The challenge, says Tysheina McCoy from Core Recruitment, is connecting people from far-flung northern communities with outside industries coming to the region. “How do you get into a company when you may not even have email?” she said. Core Recruitment is not a training agency but it will offer interview and other advice to job applicants. And it can even suggest to companies that offering a shuttle service between a
central point and a job site can help in providing the workers it needs. “Companies will then know the everybody will be on time. Something like that makes sense,” McCoy said of the idea of a shuttle service. “What this is about is breaking down the barriers.” Although based in Prince George, McCoy and Core Recruitment’s only other employee, Clay Pountney, were on a recent scouting trip to Kitimat and Prince Rupert earlier this month. Both have a human resources background with resource companies and decided to form their own agency to offer a northern-focused service.
With large companies from the outside already in the development stage and with others contemplating investments, there’s no reason why northerners shouldn’t benefit, says Pountney. “We aim to be a second set of eyes for companies,” he said. “When they can’t find, for example, a journeyman carpenter, that’s a cost for them and that’s where we can step in.” Core Recruitment is not supported by any government grants and earns its income by charging companies a fee for finding employees. McCoy and Pountney spent a year developing a business plan before launching full time approximately six months ago.
Innovators praised for ideas RICK BROUWER is more convinced than ever the region could use a place to nurture regional creativity in the hope that what evolves could turn into a business. The executive director of the SkeenaNass Centre for Innovation in Resource Economics (SNCIRE) made the comment following its hosting May 9 of a competition challenging area residents to come up products or creative ideas. “What we saw were some very good ideas and innovation. You just get the feeling more could be accomplished if we had some way, an incubator, to take these forward,” he said of 12 entries from around the region. The top placing entry, from Giulianna Hauknes of Prince Rupert and Christine Moody of Skidegate, won the $2,500 Terrace Community Forest Prize for Project Hlaana, natural spring water infused with traditional herbs, medicines and berries – all found on Haida Gwaii. The prize was based on most innovative use of a bioproduct. There were six prizes awarded in all.
Brouwer said he was also impressed with teen Brandon Greenwall from Hazelton who won the Mountain Prize worth $1,750 for a solar heater made out of pop cans and other upcycled items. “He was really into it,” said Brouwer. “He was having a great time explaining it to everybody.” “What we saw was everything we had been talking about – that if you can plant a seed, it can grow.” Mike Sorochan from Terrace won two prizes worth $1,000 each – one from UNBC and the other a people’s choice voted at the event – for his creation of a lightweight collapsible backcountry ski. The Northwest Innovation Challenge, put on by SNCIRE through the sponsorship of various contributors, could be the last official act of the centre which is closing after failing to secure long term financial backing. “When you hear about these large LNG projects and you think of their legacy, what better legacy could there be than a place for innovation, a place where you
could take ideas and build them out,” said Brouwer. There were 12 finalists from around the region and $8,500 provided in prize money from a variety of sponsors. Other prize winners included Naomi Gourlay and Carmen Nyuli winning $1,250 for placing second in the Tree prize category. Their entry was ‘Ms. Fitz Saddle. Bagz’, removable saddlebags that can also be used as fashionable hand and shoulder bags for women. And third place in the Rock prize category, worth $1,000, went to Claire Lesawich from Smithers for ‘Wood Ash replaces Road Salt’, a research project that shows the advantages of using wood ash on roads for traction, instead of other materials such as commonly used road salt. Eight judges evaluated the entries and approximately 100 people attended the event held at the Sherwood Mountain Brewhouse. That’s a new venture just establishing itself in Terrace.
CITY COUNCIL still has to decide how much of the nearly one million dollars it’s getting for selling a prime piece of real estate will go toward its planned affordable housing program. And city staffers are still crafting a policy to guide the development of the program. The sale, announced May 27, has Calgary-based Coast to Coast Holdings Ltd. paying $951,000 for 2.4 acres of undeveloped land on the corner of Park Ave. and Kenney St. in the Horseshoe. The land was once part of a larger parcel containing a provincial highways ministry maintenance yard. Buildings were taken down years ago but an asphalt layer remains over much of the surface. Coast to Coast wants to build 105 units of multifamily housing with construction starting this summer. It’s also agreed to provide an affordable housing component and is now working out those details with the city. Speaking last week, Coast to Coast executive administrative officer Kim Gregoire said the company’s building plan, including an affordable housing component, will be released by late June. “We will develop 105 apartments, including some low cost housing units,” said Gregoire. “Construction will commence during the summer of 2014 as soon as permits are issued.” A bylaw to account for the terms of the sales agreement to provide an affordable housing component still has to pass through council and “members still must determine how much of the funds from the sale will go into the Affordable Housing Fund,” added city administrator Heather Avison. The city put the parcel on the market earlier this year, setting a minimum offer of $450,000. An evaluation in February pegged the land’s value then at $408,000. The sale to Coast-to-Coast follows a city policy of selling certain city-owned lands only if there is an affordable housing component included in the developer’s plans.
More records set at airport NORTHWEST REGIONAL Airport keeps setting passenger records with April being the second month in a row to pass the 20,000 mark. April’s 20,586 passenger total and March’s 21,996 – the highest two months on record – contributed to a passenger count of 78,177 for the first four months of this year. And that’s fully more than 30,000 over the 46,399 recorded for the equivalent period in 2013. Airport manager Carman Hendry says there’s no apparent sign of growth slowing down. “It’s getting hard to believe the numbers. People in the [airport services] industry we speak to are really wondering,” he said. A concerted effort to finish Rio Tinto Alcan’s Kitimat smelter rebuilding project and continued work by companies connected with the region’s potential liquefied natural gas industry are at the core of the passenger traffic growth. The continuing growth means the addition of more parking spots, making 800 spaces in all, can’t come fast enough, said Hendry. Work on the parking area expansion began earlier this year and is being financially aided by the airport being able to crush rock available on its property. In the meantime, Hendry said the busy nature of the airport means passengers need to arrive at least one hour before their flights and to have gone through security at least 45 minutes before departure. “And check your bags right away when you’ve finished at the ticket counter. Don’t have a coffee first,” he said.