Northern Bruce Peninsula council is going to be receiving an attainable housing report suggesting actions on how to address the issue.
During a council meeting on Sept. 12, a report containing the final document of the municipal attainable housing task force was brought forward by CAO Peggy Van Mierlo-West.
Mayor Milt McIver says as they close in on the municipal election, they are leaving the decision making regarding this report to the next term of council.
“The timing of it wasn’t right for this council to deal with anything. So we felt, and it was the recommendation as well, that it be brought forward to the new council,” says McIver.
The task force, comprised of residents and stakeholders, came together to discuss the issues and opportunities surrounding attainable housing, while also identifying community needs and ideas for improving access to attainable housing in the area.
The task force identified four gaps to housing in the municipality.
These included an overall lack of housing, and a mismatch of housing sizes where a third of housing in the area are one and two bedrooms. It also identified water and sewer servicing may be impacting housing development, and development standards and policy regime, as the well water and the septic systems are more difficult to use to meet the needs of multi-unit residential buildings.
To address these gaps, the report includes three recommendations.
According to the report, seasonal residents are able to outbid local residents when it comes to all types of market housing. One recommendation seeks to create a strategy to create a non-market for attainable housing to allow residents to access housing in the area.
Another recommendation suggests expanding water and sewer infrastructure in Tobermory and Lion’s Head, as it lowers the short-term and long-term costs for attainable housing and enables construction of a variety of businesses.
The third recommendation suggests working with the county on rural development standards. The goal is to clarify for the development community on how multi-residential buildings can be built in the municipality.
The report also included eight suggested actions:
-introducing local development charges for water and sewer services
-introducing local development charges for community services
-introducing local development charges for affordable and attainable housing
-create an organizational structure to manage attainable housing in the municipality
-examine other revenue sources for attainable housing
-explore net-zero and low impact development standards
-undertake a focused study on how to enable safe and affordable second units within the existing housing stock
The report says the overall goal is to create an attainable housing strategy, which would assist in creating more attainable housing.
McIver says the housing crisis is not an issue that affects Northern Bruce Peninsula alone.
“There are several municipalities attempting to solve the affordable housing raffle situation, but are not far enough down the path to really have any examples of what success looks like,” says McIver.
