Rendering of BC Hydro’s first 1,600-person high-end work camp
planned for the Site C construction site near Fort St. John.
- Atco Structures & Logistics
By Frank O’Brien
An industrial policy change is gelding a potential bull market for landlords in northeast B.C. just as giant – and long-awaited – construction projects fire up.
Progress Energy, a subsidiary of Malaysia gas giant Petronas, which is ready to launch the biggest liquefied natural gas investment in Canada, ruled in mid-May that all its employees and contractors must live in company work camps.
Calgary-based Encana, also active in the northeast gas fields, is building a 1,200-person camp 55 kilometres outside Dawson Creek and is also encouraging workers to stay on site.
And BC Hydro, which has started the eight-year construction of the $8 billion Site C dam that will require about 2,200 workers at the peak, is opening luxury work camps and building its own rental apartments, cutting off a flow of potential tenants into nearby Fort St. John.
By keeping the staff in camps, employers are not paying the average $150 per day in “living out allowances” for workers who prefer to live in towns. From the Site C play alone, this represents a potential cash flow cut of nearly $10 million a month for Fort St. John landlords, retailers and restaurants.
“To encourage workers to stay in the camp, a living out allowance will not be paid for those who choose not to live in the camp,” said BC Hydro spokesman David Conway. He added that the Site C camp “helps address community concerns about a potential strain on the rental market.”
But local landlords may welcome the strain.
The rental vacancy rate in Fort St. John, which is just seven kilometers from the Site C site, has tripled in the past year to the 4% range and Dawson Creek now has the highest rental vacancy rate in the province at 9%, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. Local landlords, who charge some of the highest rents in B.C., expect the vacancy rate to climb.
Doug Scott, president of Real Flow Investments, owns 200 rental apartments in Dawson Creek and he said he wouldn’t build anymore. “The economy here is already soft and the work camp decision isn’t helping,” he said.
