LM Wind Power wants to hire and house 200 workers in Gaspé to manufacture the largest wind turbine blades in the world. Its mayor Daniel Côté explains where the municipality is located.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
They are the largest wind turbine blades in the world: 107 meters in length, as long as an American football field.
It is to manufacture them in its Gaspé plant that LM Wind Power announced in July 2021 an investment of nearly $170 million for the expansion of its facilities and the hiring of 200 new workers.
They are not there yet: housing must be built. Lots of accommodation.
In March 2022, the Portrait of the housing situation in the MRC of La Côte-de-Gaspécarried out by RCGT, forecast the arrival of 890 new workers in Gaspé by 2026. In response, the MRC adopted an action plan last July which aims to build 551 housing units by 2026, including approximately 500 would be destined for Gaspé.
Shortage of labor in construction is an obstacle? One problem at a time. We must first tackle the shortage of promoters.
“It’s difficult in a region like ours to recruit housing developers,” notes the mayor of Gaspé, Daniel Côté.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The Mayor of Gaspé, Daniel Côté
For different reasons. On the one hand, we are not yet perceived as being a very attractive market by the major real estate groups. On the other hand, overall construction costs are 30% higher here than in major urban centres.
Daniel Côté, Mayor of Gaspé
“And the rent does not follow because the price of rent is lower here than in the big centers. For someone who invests here, it will take quite a bit longer to make his investment profitable than if he invests in the crowns of Montreal, for example. »
This undermines the foundations of funding.
PHOTO JACQUES BOISSINOT, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited the Gaspé plant of LM Wind Power in July 2021, when the hiring of 200 new workers was announced. The challenge now is to house them.
“Bankers are always very hesitant to invest in rental investment files in a region like ours,” he continues. They ask owners to make an independent assessment of the value of their building after construction. And often, the evaluation will come to show that the building will have less value than the construction costs. »
“Incentives”
To attract promoters despite the pitfalls, the City of Gaspé offers what its mayor calls “incentives”.
“We obtained a private law called the Gaspé Town Actwhich allows the City to offer tax credits to private real estate developers, which a city cannot normally offer”, he describes.
One of the keys is to show that we are an attractive environment, an environment that is alive. This means that we also invest a lot in leisure, culture, in the quality of life. I think it’s always more interesting for a promoter to put his balls in a place that is developing, that moves, that is alive.
Daniel Côté, Mayor of Gaspé
It is still necessary to let the promoter in question know.
“We take all the possible stands, assures Daniel Côté. We pay for advertising, we talk to all the journalists, we participate in all kinds of forums and forums. Wherever we talk about housing, housing, we are there and people talk about us. It opens the eyes of people who might never have thought of us. »
Where to find them?
Where do these hot promoters come from? The first buildings, with a few apartments each, were built by local contractors. But the first major project, a set of 144 housing units, was promoted by investors who are not from the region.
“But these are people from not very far from Gaspé, specifies the mayor. The coordinator of all this is in New Brunswick. It develops housing stock in the Moncton area. In fact, his mother is in Gaspé, he admits, laughing. He heard about us that way, and he decided to come and invest here. »
Another project of similar magnitude is under negotiation, this time with a promoter in the Montreal region.
“But he too had a certain historical connection with us. He is doing market analysis. And we are in the process of making assessments of land that we could cede to him. He read articles and he thought, ‘Why don’t I invest there? Sounds interesting to me. And every time we talk to each other, he finds it interesting! “, he launches with another sonorous laugh.
“It’s a bit like that that you score points! »
The burden on infrastructure
We can already predict that the construction of 400 to 500 additional dwellings in four years could push the current water and sewage distribution networks to their limit.
“There are sectors where the pipelines are about to be saturated and there are other sectors where there is still room for development, observes Daniel Côté. At present, with the projects we have in our pipeline, the water treatment plant is able to supply and the drinking water wells can meet the demand. On the other hand, if development continues at high speed as is the case, we know that what will await us eventually will be an upgrade of the water treatment plant and perhaps boreholes for drinking water. We have engineers who are analyzing different scenarios for the future, but the analyzes are far from over. »
Basements and hotel rooms
Meanwhile, LM Wind Power’s projects are progressing.
The construction of the 6.3 km road that will connect the plant to the port of Gaspé for the transport of the titanic blades was launched last July.
On September 16, Federal Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced that his government had just concluded an agreement with the plant for the creation of a research and development centre.
Even more new jobs? The company, through the voice of its American spokesperson at GE, indicated that it was still too early to comment on the consequences of this announcement.
LM Wind Power is doing what it can to house the workers it has already recruited overseas.
The factory was also imaginative. They managed to find housing, not for all the 200 workers, but as we speak, for several dozen employees.
Daniel Côté, Mayor of Gaspé
“Sometimes it can be the basements of houses that were used as housing when there were 2,000 students in CEGEP. They also rented out hotel rooms with long-term rentals. »
But it’s not with basements or hotel rooms that we attract families.
“They won’t be able to get their 200 new workers as quickly as they would have liked because we are not collectively able to provide all the accommodations, recognizes the mayor. If everyone pulls out all the stops, we may not have 200 new jobs in 2022, but by the end of 2023, we should have filled them. »