Housing still an obstacle for Whitehorse businesses: outgoing chamber of commerce president

A lot has changed in Whitehorse since Rick Karp became president of the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce.

Karp is retiring this month after 14 years aspresident of the organization.

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Housing needs persist

In 2004, downtown was pretty quiet.Walmarthad opened just three years earlier. Now, more entrepreneurs are coming to the city to set up shop. But Karp says one thing has stayed consistent the need for more housing.

"It's really difficult for the private sector to find employees and part of that is because [of] housing," he said.

"The cost of housing has skyrocketed. The ability of developers to get into the market is very difficult because of the cost of building in Whitehorse and the availability of the land."

Karp says he remembers going to the land office when the Copper Ridge neighbourhood was being built and being able to pick his lot.

In 2006, he says the city promised to have a two-year supply of lots, but that never happened.

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Karp says Whitehorse is "entering into a real age of growth" with the Conference Board of Canada predicting Yukon's average GDP growing 6.8 per cent over the next fiveto sevenyears.

"That means a lot more people coming, that means the mining sector, that means tourism [is]going to see large growth," he said.

Part of the chamber's job is to prepare the business community for that kind of growth, he says.

Karp says the city's social issues remain, but now people are "starting to do something about it." HecitedHousing First and Safe at Home as examples.

"It's significant for the business community as well, because there are a lot of issues with social issues in the business community in the stores and everywhere else," he said.