Student housing in Antigonish is changing with the times

Antigonish Mayor Laurie Boucher says that the student population of her town has been steadily increasing over the last few years. Along with that, the need for student housing has also been growing.

“Students naturally want to come off-campus in their second or third year, and move into the community,” she says.

Home to St. Francis Xavier University, the town's population of about 5,000 is matched by students from September through April.

“We love having the students in our community. They're a great economic builder for us, they teach our children, they coach our children, they do a lot of volunteer work. So really we know how fortunate we are to have St. FX in our community.” Boucher tells NEWS 95.7's The Todd Veinotte Show.

But problems slowly arose, as students began driving up rental prices and taking up all the empty apartments in the town limits.

“Of course a small university town, students looking for housing increases the pricing of housing and increases the rental prices as well,” Boucher explains. “So there's good and bad.”

On top of that, the town was also concerned about whether student housing was up to fire code and building regulations.

“There's another side to this as well and we want to make sure that the homes that the students are living in are safe as well,” Boucher adds.

So Antigonish town council began working on a bylaw and a new Municipal Housing Strategy (MPS) that would change how homes and buildings can be rented out.

One of the main things the new MPS prohibits is the creation of rooming houses — buildings that have five or more rooms.

“Once it's considered a rooming house then it has a different set of fire codes and a different set of building codes to go by,” Boucher says.

There are several old Victorian-era houses that already exist as rooming houses in the town. The council has decided that those can stay, and will be grandfathered in until the new law.

“They have to be registered, so we know how many are in the town and we know when they started becoming rooming houses,” the mayor explains.

For students at St. FX looking for off-campus housing, Boucher says there will be other options that soon become available.

“We have a lot of young professionals coming into our town with the hospital and St. FX, and therefore we've created within our municipal planning strategy, room for diverse housing, which are smaller units, maybe accessory houses behind homes that people would like to rent out to maybe one or two students,” she says.

But as families become smaller and space in the town is limited, Boucher says it's important to consider what new residences are being built.

“In order to avoid what we're moving away from, the bigger homes and the bigger student facilities, there's a limit on what you can build,” Boucher says. “There's a limit on the square footage of the floor, there's a limit on the number of rooms and stuff like that.”

Boucher says after a year and a half of working on it, the MPS has been approved by the town's planning committee, it will now go to the province to be approved.

“We're trying to meet the needs of our new society while still making sure that the students have places to live as well,” she adds.