HALDIMAND—In September, former Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark tasked all Ontario municipalities with responding to 74 recommendations for advancing housing affordability in their community.
Clark asked municipalities to choose five of the recommendations they identify as the most important (at right), and then to vote in support or opposition of the remaining 69.
Manager of Community and Development Services Mike Evers said that, on review, County staff identified 54 recommendations they supported.
Of the 20 they opposed, most relate to negative financial impacts staff feel would occur, with Evers commenting that some would “significantly reduce or completely eliminate public process and approvals as it relates to more dense developments.”
He continued, “From a planning perspective, having that process preserved and having public input into changing the face of a neighbourhood is significantly important. To lose that would be a significant concern, which is why there’s a suite of recommendations we’ve identified as ‘opposed’.… The overwhelming majority, we do believe make sense and are implementable.”
Municipalities had an October 16 deadline to submit their reply. Evers said that he hopes other municipalities raise some of the same red flags Haldimand has, with a goal of having the Province re-evaluate those items and the impact they could have on municipal budgets.
“I believe this is real consultation in terms of whether these 74 recommendations are actually achievable at the end of the day, and if there’s some tweaking that needs to be done along the way,” said Evers.
Council had a chance to ask questions about staff’s recommendations, with Councillor Patrick O’Neill asking how common the County’s fourth pick is for the ability to withdraw infrastructure allocations from permitted projects where no work has been done in the past three years.
“One of the things we’ve worked into our program is a ‘use it or lose it’ criteria. In the past, we have acted on that, where certain developers had received an allocation for a period of a certain number of years. When their time came for renewal if there was zero movement on the project, we did not renew it,” replied Evers.
He said there are no current projects with an imminent withdrawal, but added, “We have a housing crisis and are looking to build as soon as we can. It’s certainly another tool in our toolbox, to make sure developers do spring to action as quickly as possible, and they’re not holding capacity for extended periods of time and thus denying other developers a chance of moving forward.”
Councillor Stewart Patterson asked for clarification on why the County opposed recommendation 40, which would see development charges waived on all forms of affordable housing as long as they are guaranteed to remain affordable for 40 years.
“Yes, there could be a negative impact on us financially, but as a Council is that not something we’ve been trying to promote for years and years? Trying to actually get real affordable housing built?” asked Patterson. “I think the vast majority of developers aren’t going to do it on their own without some kind of incentive…. Could we get a future report on what you folks think the actual cost would be for that?”
Financial and Data Services Manager Mark Merritt replied, “Anytime there’s a waive on development charges, the County would have to fund that specific exemption. That’s the financial impact of it. It may or may not be significant, depending on how many units become applicable.”
Merritt said that the big challenge relates to defining affordability, noting, “The Province, in the last revision to the development charges act … they added a definition and then changed it; it’s subject to future Minister regulations that are currently being worked on right now.”
He said affordability could apply to a variety of forms, from houses sold for less than their market value, to housing prices geared to a person’s income.
Patterson commented, “Everybody’s interpretation is different, but I don’t believe it’s a $700,000 house. If we can get some houses built by waiving a certain amount of the development fee, we’re not going to be building hundreds of these; we might build 60, or six in a development unit. I think it’s our responsibility to look at that and perhaps try to promote that as opposed to just saying ‘no it’s a cost of doing business’.
Merritt replied, “I agree with your comments with regards to supporting affordable housing. Is this the best method to achieve that? I would argue probably not, at least not from a financial and administrative perspective. There are other mechanisms that would better serve affordable housing.”
Mayor Shelley Ann Bentley disagreed with the County supporting recommendation 29, which would allow for construction of 12-storey buildings implementing wood construction.
“Concrete retains heat in the winter and it’s cool in the summer, and concrete lasts two or three times longer than wood construction. International building code states we can build up to six floors. I’m wondering about fire codes for 12-storey wood construction,” said the mayor.
Evers replied, “This is something that has been studied for a number of years within the industry and is supported by many in the industry, by different experts in the field, architects, etc. It’s a more cost-efficient way of constructing, and it’s something that more and more chief building officials are getting behind and supporting.”
Council voted unanimously in favour of supporting the response, which was sent to the Province ahead of the deadline.
