Barrie’s affordable housing plan could stretch to institutional land.
City councillors will consider a motion Monday to contact all owners of institutionally designated properties in Barrie indicating the intention to allow housing as-of-right on their properties, and inviting them to contact the city to discuss the potential for the construction of affordable housing on their land.
Once projects are determined, city staff would seek proposals from consultants in accordance with Barrie’s procurement bylaw to conduct feasibility studies for affordable housing projects on institutionally designated properties, owned by non-profit or charitable organizations, to be funded by the city’s community benefit reserve for a total of as many as 10 studies at a maximum cost of $20,000 each.
This motion is an item of discussion sponsored by Mayor Jeff Lehman, who also chairs the affordable housing task force, where the motion originated.
“There are properties that are institutionally zoned that have enough physical space to build affordable housing on,” he said. “A lot of those are churches (or places of worship).”
But Lehman said institutional zoning was changed some time ago to no longer allow residential uses, so a rezoning was needed to do that. Which means a rezoning application, a public meeting and a decision by city council - which can be a slow, expensive process.
The mayor said one of the things planning staff are doing with the new Official Plan (OP) is revising the institutional designation to allow residential, and do the same with the zoning.
“What we want to do is pay for feasibility studies for some of these organizations that own institutional properties, because a lot of them aren’t…they’re places of worship, they’re not developers and there’re going to need an architect or a planner or somebody to say you could build this much, you would need this much parking and you would still have this much for …that kind of feasibility test," said Lehman.
“The first step in any affordable housing project is that feasibility project or concept and that’s what we’re suggesting we’d pay for, to try and get some affordable housing projects going right away.”
Lehman says he met with officials from churches and places of worship on this very issue three or four years ago, and said they thought it was a worthwhile endeavour to help people, try to help the homeless and try to create affordable housing.
“But they would have to go pay for a bunch of consultants and didn’t really have anybody on their staff …who had experience doing this kind of thing,” he said. “There were some pretty big barriers.
“We think this might be a way to get a lot more of them sort of in the game.”
A public meeting was held in June for a number of OP, city-initiated rezoning plans to deal with affordable housing, and allowing residential use on institutional land was included - although accessory dwellings got most of the attention.
“I’m going to ask them (council) to go a little bit further than zoning, I’m going to ask them to pay for studies to get them (affordable housing projects) going,” Lehman said.
“The whole point of the task force is to make things happen,” Lehman said. “We see this as a way to get some action right away.”
The affordable housing task force’s mandate is to co-ordinate Simcoe County, Barrie and charitable/not-for-profit housing projects and policies, to aggressively expand the supply of affordable housing, with particular emphasis on addressing the hardest to house.
Created last March - along with a performing arts centre and downtown market precinct task forces - each is to report by year’s end with specific plans.
The city defines affordable rental housing as a unit for which the rent doesn’t exceed 30% of the gross annual household income for low- to moderate-income households. That income is based upon the most recent Canada Census statistics for Barrie, which is updated every five years.
Affordable housing is a range of housing types allowing families and individuals, of all income levels, to find suitable places to live without spending a disproportionate percentage of their income on housing.
Affordable housing can include ownership, rental or subsidized housing. Barrie’s affordable housing strategy is designed to encourage, stimulate and increase the supply and range of affordable housing options to meet the needs of residents of all income levels, at all stages of life.
