Huntsville Council has voted in favour of donating lands the municipality owns in the Sabrina Park Drive area as a means of trying to kick-start the construction of more attainable housing in the community. The initiative was approved at council’s February 27 meeting.
The municipality is expected to issue a request for proposal from the private and/or public sector later this week. The RFP will determine whether there are interested parties willing to build a mix of different types of housing in exchange for land and other possible incentives such as the waiving of development-related municipal fees.
Huntsville Mayor Scott Aitchison, who has been spearheading the initiative along with councillors Nancy Alcock and Jason Fitzgerald, was careful to point out that the vision behind such a development requires a mix of housing to ensure there is no stigma attached to those who may choose to live there. He said the proponent would be required to “demonstrate to us how they’re not just building a bunch of units but actually building a community and lifting up a community and have them demonstrate to us how they would actually do that.”
Deputy Mayor Karin Terziano pointed out that programs for the provision of affordable housing are a District of Muskoka function, which has dedicated staff looking at the issue. She questioned whether additional staff would be required at the local level in order to see the project through.
Aitchison said additional staff at Town Hall would not be required. “Everything that we’re doing, we’re doing in consultation and partnership with the District of Muskoka because they do have the housing staff.” He said the municipality would enter into a contractual agreement with the developer to build a certain number of units at a prescribed price range for roughly 20 years in exchange for incentives such as land. “If for some reason some of those units change, then they have to start paying us a pro-rated prescribed rate for that land,” he said. “We don’t want to have staff here that polices that. The District has that staff and there’s no need for us to have it… I’m a big believer in one level of government doing one set of things and the other level of government doing another set. All we’re doing here is kick-starting the process because that means now.”
Prompted by Councillor Brian Thompson, Aitchison explained a bit more of the vision and said there would ideally be housing of various types and sizes for various demographics of the population currently sitting on social housing waiting lists such as single people, families as well as seniors. “At the same time we don’t want to create just a great big building that has a stigma attached to it, ‘that’s where the poor people live’ kind of stigma,” he added.
Aitchison said a committee will be asking prospective developers to bring forth a proposal on how to build such a community.
The RFP actually engages the proponent to tell us what they will do to create a community, not just in terms of the construction but in terms of the ongoing operation of the facility and what they expect from the municipality, from the District – all partners that can be engaged in the process of actually lifting up a community as opposed to just creating a bunch of apartment buildings for people to live in.
Mayor Scott Aitchison
Councillor Nancy Alcock reiterated the importance of a mixed development and said that hopefully there will be a number of proponents interested in the project. She said it is a fairly significant area of land, which would provide an opportunity to build different types of housing on those lands. “Another component of it is to ask the applicants how will this new community fit within the existing fabric because it is near Sabrina Park and it is near a very well established community of single family dwellings and townhouses,” she said.
Councillor Jason Fitzgerald said he’s excited to see what the RFP brings. “I’m excited about seeing what people come up with because there’s new and exciting projects and people are really thinking outside the box to address the homeless needs for families on the list in municipalities like ours.”
Councillor Jonathan Wiebe reiterated how exciting the project could be and predicted that the end result would be vastly different from other developments. “I can’t stress enough from a member of the planning committee, to see the deliberate difference in approaching a project like this with the idea and the spirit of community at its core, versus meeting the requirements and putting as many units as you possibly can on a piece of property. The end result is going to be vastly different and it’s going to be, I believe, it’s going to be a great addition to our community in so far as meeting needs for a large swath of the population within different income scales.”
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As the Huntsville AAC reserves the right to comment on any Council motion, I am probably repeating their concern. Within the affordable/attainable spectrum, there exists a subset of accessible housing. The normal benchmark has always been 10%, but with our aging demographic, it could possibly be higher. In any event, perhaps a survey could be carried out prior to the finalization of the subdivision.