RM of Piney looking for community feedback with housing survey

The RM of Piney is looking for residents to participate in a regional survey regarding housing in the municipality.

“The RM of Piney does a housing survey every few years, (it) wants to keep sort of a pulse on what demand is looking like, where the gaps are, (and) what people are looking for in the future,” said Monique Chenier, economic development and tourism manager for Sunrise Corner for the RMs of Piney and Stuartburn. Chenier is helping to facilitate the survey.

The survey will ask 19 questions looking at demographics, what people’s current living situations are, the types of housing residents are looking for (seniors, multi-family rentals, single-family homes), and other housing related questions.

Chenier said the majority of housing in Piney is single-family owned homes with a “handful” of rentals mostly as duplexes.

Initially, the surveys came out of an East Borderland Community Housing project that was looking into a three-phase construction project for seniors housing in Sprague, about 20 years ago.

Chenier became involved with the surveys in 2019 and 2021. The surveys only looked at seniors housing needs. She said almost 50 percent of the population in Piney are 55-plus.

“We might be the highest average age in the entire Southeast, according to the census. I guess this is a year for a new census, so we’ll see how those numbers have changed. But we’ve always been a community that is a bit of a retirement community. People want to retire where they grew up,” said Chenier.

This year’s survey will still mostly look at seniors’ housing, but Chenier said all residents are asked to participate.

“The way we’re thinking about it, because we’ve got such a high population of seniors, that adding housing on that end of the spectrum (seniors), frees up housing for the rest of the demographic spectrum,” she said, noting seniors have told the mayor and councilors during their Coffee with Council meetings that they have to leave the municipality because there is no housing to suit their needs.

“We’re trying to get a realistic idea of where the demand is and what will meet the needs of our residents here,” noted Chenier.

“Maybe one spouse passes away and the other one can’t manage the home on their own. They would like to stay – move into a little condo or a little apartment type of thing – but there just is very, very few rentals in this area. And just that housing type just doesn’t really exist here yet.”

Chenier said the RM is speaking with a number of developers who want to build in the municipality. She shared one of the main reasons for the survey is to provide data to those developers so that they know how much of a demand there is for certain types of housing in Piney.

“And that (will) help reduce their risk and build the type of housing that people really need and want in the area.”

Piney consists of 2,433 square kilometers of which more than 75 percent is forested Crown land. The RM has 12 communities with a combined population of 1,843 people (2021) with Woodridge being the most populous with more than 300 permanent and seasonal residents.

Located 50 kilometres southeast of Steinbach, Woodridge was built out of the pulp and lumber industries in the 1900s, but today some of its residents enjoy cottage life, the outdoors, and the ATV trails.

“(Woodridge) is half an hour to Steinbach, so it’s very commutable and people we find are building out in that area – St Labre, Woodridge, Sandilands – with the intent of having it as their weekend place now, and then retiring there in the future.”

In Sunrise Corner’s strategic plan, Chenier said the RM has a number of companies looking for workers in the natural resource industry, agriculture, healthcare, and manufacturing sectors, which might be attractive to a young workforce. But she said if there is a lack of housing, that might hinder getting workers to move into the municipality.

“Housing is right on the top of the priority pile for us here and impacts everything else we’re doing just about,” she said.

The survey is open to everyone 18 years and older. It can be accessed by visiting getfoureyes.com/s/9QbTJ/. The survey closes on May 31 with results expected to be released after a couple of weeks after the deadline.