HALDIMAND—Haldimand County will pen an official response to a letter sent by Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Paul Callandra, which accused Haldimand of coming up short of its housing goals last year and failing to submit a housing pledge related to the provincial goal of building 1 million new homes across Ontario by 2031.
The letter, sent in February and addressed to Mayor Shelley Ann Bentley, asserts that while Haldimand’s housing start target for 2023, as defined by the Province, was set at 308 new starts, only 171 (56%) were achieved throughout the year. Haldimand’s General Manager of Community and Development Services Mike Evers disputed this calculation during a Council session last week.
“The reality is, the letter, the content of the letter, and any potential response to it, are inconsequential. As Council will recall, the County did not commit to provincial targets and is not eligible for the Building Faster Fund,” said Evers. “However, as staff we do feel it is important to engage with the letter and to provide a response to get on the record about three things in particular.”
First up is the housing start figures, publicly available through a provincial tracker, which Evers called “wrong, I’ll be as blunt as that.”
Evers defined housing starts utilizing the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation definition, which labels a housing start as “when the footings and foundation are complete.”
He shared, “The Province’s tracker indicates that there were 171 such starts in 2023, but we in fact registered 382 unique inspections into our city view system in 2023.… Unique inspections of the footings and foundations, the exact thing the Province is saying should qualify or be considered as a housing start…. These are locally generated, reliable, defendable statistics from our end.”
He said that the County should respond with “questions around the accuracy of the data,” while asking for “ways we can help support the Province to make sure that what is being released publicly is accurate.”
Evers also raised concerns with Callandra’s statement that Haldimand failed to address a provincial request to rank a list of 74 recommendations from the Housing Affordability Task Force and provide feedback on ways to fast-track development.
“Council may recall that back in October we did address this,” said Evers. “We brought a report forward, addressed the 74, and identified the County’s top five with rationale for why we chose that top five, and some ideas or suggestions about how those could be implemented across the province. That package was sent to the Minister’s office both in hard copy and by way of email.”
The County will resubmit that package along with their upcoming response.
Lastly, Callandra noted that due to the County’s refusal to submit a “Council-endorsed pledge or Head of Council commitment to meet the assigned 2031 housing target,” in addition to the other items discussed previously, “Haldimand County has not met the eligibility criteria for the Building Faster Fund in 2023. I encourage you to work towards eligibility for future program years.”
Evers noted, “That is true, because we did not complete a pledge in line with the Province’s targets, but this Council did endorse a housing pledge, complete with strategies to build more homes, faster, but that was in relation to County targets, as shown in our Official Plan. Locally suitable targets.”
While this pledge was sent to the Minister previously, Evers said the response should make note of the County’s chosen pledge again.
“It’s not a pledge to the Province’s targets, but it’s a locally appropriate way to respond to what the Province is trying to accomplish.”
He added, “In our view as staff, everything we’ve done and sent to the Minister is in fact supporting provincial objectives in regard to housing development. We think it’s important to put that on the record.”
Evers noted Haldimand met recently with a representative from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), who shared that many other municipalities are dealing with similar issues.
“AMO is lobbying or acting on behalf of many municipalities in southern Ontario that are experiencing this exact same issue. We need to rectify this. For some it’s affecting funding, and for others, like us, we want to make sure it’s accurate, especially when you have this public-facing tracker that is out there and documenting performance,” he concluded.
Councillor Dan Lawrence summarized, “If you want to throw us under the bus, let’s make sure it’s the proper numbers that are used and not just something that’s pulled out of thin air and fiction.”
Council voted unanimously in favour of preparing an official County response to the Minister’s letter and submitting it to the Province.