Business View Civil & Municipal - May 2023

139 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 4, ISSUE 5 LAC LA B I CHE COUNTY cars in the driveway, and it’s more affordable for them. They’d be able to go to the recreational facilities, they can get to various businesses and restaurants and different things like that.” Although Lac La Biche is considered an affordable place to live, she admits, “We don’t have a lot of high-density residential in our community or affordable housing options. It is affordable to live here, to buy a house, but some people can’t afford an approximately $400,000 home, so townhomes and other high-density homes would be a good idea around facilities like our Bold Center.” As a hub of the community, Bold Center is a multiplex, with facilities for sports, including two ice rinks, a soon-to-be-added aquatic center, as well as an attached library and school. Opened in 2010, the center was to be a central zone for the community, and a way for families to spend more time together. The addition of high- density housing nearby will further support this vision while filling a housing need. Home to three school boards, Northern Lights Public, Lakeland Catholic Separate, and Central East Francophone, Lac La Biche County has plenty of quality education options. The county also supports postsecondary workforce and education opportunities, with a registered apprenticeship program (RAP) within the school boards, and a Youth Achievement Program that offers job shadow experience to middle school students. Although the program was paused during covid, Stromquist says it was extraordinarily successful, sharing the example of Lac La Biche transport. “We had students that were job shadowing there, and they went off to school, and now they’re working there, the same place they did