County explores rural housing funds
Clearview’s Deputy Mayor Barry Burton (pictured) was successful in getting support from county councillors Wednesday to pass a motion that could result in the construction of affordable housing rental units in rural settlement areas.
Working with Tay Township Mayor Scott Warnock and the county’s general manager of social and community services Greg Bishop, Burton said they developed a plan to allocate $2 million in 2018 and $2 million in 2019, specifically for small rural development areas. Burton said meetings have been held over the past year, leading to the motion to direct staff to prepare a report. The $4 million would be on top of the money the county has already allocated for affordable housing.
“We have high demand and low volume, it’s an ongoing problem throughout the county. The problem is a lot of the money spent on affordable housing, building affordable housing units, is spent in the larger urban areas and not much is being spent in the smaller development areas, such as Creemore, Stayner and various others,” said Burton.
“The whole purpose of the motion is to get money directed to the smaller development areas where we don’t have the land or the ability to build 40 units but we do have the ability to build eight or 10 units on some municipal lots and we could partner with developers and make a smaller quantity of units and still fulfill the needs of the small communities where affordable housing is necessary.”
The money would support three-way partnerships between developers, the municipality and the county.
“All three have to get involved to solve this problem because it is a problem and we can’t go around ignoring it,” said Burton.
He said building costs make it hard to rent the units at a reduced rate and make a profit, or even cover costs.
“We have seniors now who are having to move to larger urban areas to find affordable housing,” said Burton.
The problem, he said, is that when they move from their community to a larger centre, it puts additional population pressures on that community, using up its affordable housing.
“Also, seniors and families want to stay in their communities and that’s the reality, especially with single parent families. The reason they are in the smaller communities is because they feel it’s safer, they like the smaller communities, they feel it’s a better atmosphere for the children to grow up but they can’t get the high income jobs to support what it costs to live in one of these smaller communities,” said Burton.
Burton said about three quarters of the 16 member municipalities in the county supported the motion directing staff to prepare a report for the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee to allocate the funds to be used towards supporting affordable housing initiatives, including but not limited to private partnerships, for less dense projects and municipal lands, in smaller rural development areas.
“Over the years, the county has done an admirable job using the limited resources made available to support affordable housing initiatives. However over the past 14 years that I have sat as councillor in this chamber, it is apparent that the overwhelming vast majority of county supported initiatives have been in our urban centres,” said Warnock in his supporting comments Wednesday.
“Although that is understandable to some degree I believe it is imperative that moving forward the county needs to make dedicated funding available so that our rural based municipalities also can be part of the funding allocations.
“The County’s adopted affordable housing plan allocates specific targets for all 16 county municipalities as well as the Cities of Barrie and Orillia. With that being the case the county should also have in place a funding action plan that provides for dedicated funding opportunities for all areas of the county not just our urban centres.”
In communities with a lot of development, money from development charges can be set aside for affordable housing but municipalities like Clearview, that aren’t seeing much growth cannot rely on that revenue, said Burton.
“Tay Township is very much like us, they are a collection of small development areas, they don’t have one big centre. Severn Township is the same. There are many of them,” said Burton.
The initiative aims to help such municipalities meet their affordable housing targets set out in the County of Simcoe’s 10-Year Affordable Housing and Homelessness Prevention Strategy, adopted in 2014. The total number of affordable dwelling units required countywide is 2,685, with 79 or those needed in Clearview.
“The county has put these targets on us, how are we ever going to achieve them without some assistance? Affordable housing is a reality that we have to face. The cost of housing has become out of the reach of people, buying a house is becoming out of the reach of most young families now,” said Burton.
He said renting is the only option for some.
“It was a big motion to get passed and a big step forward and I did this because I hope Clearview is going to benefit from it,” said Burton.
