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Hamilton Spectator

County disperses $7 million to municipalities for affordable housing

COUNTY OF WELLINGTON –Some feel that giving local municipalities funds to address the affordable housing gap in the community might be more of a curse than a blessing. Following staff recommendations at an Administration, Finance and Human Resources Committee Tuesday afternoon, councillors narrowly approved dividing the approximately $7 million previously raised for the recently-cancelled Continuum of Care project between all of the municipalities of Wellington County. The City of Guelph is not receiving funds. According to CAO Scott Wilson, each local municipality is eligible for up to $1,000,000 to develop housing to address the availability gap between low-end market housing and subsidized housing, as determined by each local municipal council. The project must have all local permissions in place by Dec. 31, 2027, or the funds will be forfeited. This follows Coun. Andy Lennox requesting a comprehensive assessment of the affordable housing proposals already presented to the county's Attainable Housing Taskforce Working Group. Proposing a deferral, Lennox was concerned that the recommendation delegates responsibility down to local municipalities 'with no care or concern about their ability to deliver on this.' The deferral failed 3:2 (for: Warden Chris White, Coun. James Seeley and Coun. Earl Campbell, against: Coun. Diane Ballantyne, Coun. Andy Lennox) Lennox later asked for a community scan of who might be able to deliver or partner with the County of Wellington, as was originally proposed, to ensure they have enough information to ensure the plan isn't a failure. 'I don't want to put a fund together, say we're going to pass this off to the local municipalities and they don't have the capacity to do it. That's setting ourselves up for failure ... I think we're just fooling ourselves if we're going to put this money out there and not try and ensure that it's going to deliver on the result that we want,' said Lennox. Agreeing with Lennox, Coun. Diane Ballantyne said she's unsure how helpful it would be for every municipality to get $1 million since some have smaller populations and tax contributions. Talking about equity versus equality, Ballantyne also questioned why staff didn't recommend pursuing one of the four alternate housing development models presented in the report. The models included were: 'The demand for affordable housing, while it exists everywhere, is going to be more acute in some areas as opposed to others,' said Ballantyne. 'I question the cookie-cutter approach to the $1 million to each municipality.' Warden Chris White said the money is meant to be a starting point, and they didn't provide recommendations because they wanted to give each municipality the freedom to meet their individual needs. 'I didn't want something too restrictive, it's essentially wide open,' said Wilson. 'Whatever a municipality wants to pursue is permitted ... it (the report) is not designed to support any model in particular.' Supporting the recommendations, Coun. James Seeley shared concerns about the 'very tight' timeline and asked whether staff could soften the deadlines to give developers more wiggle room if necessary approvals slow a project down. Wilson disagreed, arguing that extensions are too much and he'd prefer a solid deadline because it puts pressure on developers to get something done and gives staff some assurance. 'That's over two years to get that all in line,' said Wilson. 'We're trying to do something reasonably quickly because of the urgency of providing housing. I would think it'd be all hands to the pump and everybody would work together to get that done.' Commenting that they're on the right track, Coun. Campbell Cork said he was disappointed to see the inclusion of affordable rentals in the report, asking for more emphasis on homeownership because that's where he sees the gap. 'I think the concept of getting equity in your living place or your home is the key to it being successful,' said Cork. 'I would've been thrilled to see a model that said 100 per cent homeownership as the end goal of it all.' Sharing some of Cork's concerns about the inclusion of affordable rentals in a plan focused on attainable housing, Coun. Matthew Bulmer suggested a density target. 'We all talk about wanting to improve affordability,' said Bulmer. 'The cases we've reviewed identified that increasing density is key to driving affordability.' Isabel Buckmaster is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program.