Bystanders

There is nothing to be done. Council conceded last week it is powerless to change the trajectory of the housing market in Prince Edward County. Even as it approved five despairingly modest proposals meant to spur the development of more affordable homes, it acknowledged—begrudgingly— that none of it will see the light of day until spring. More likely the fall of next year. That is when Council will pick up this conversation next. Or not.

It became blindingly apparent last week; this institution just isn’t up to the job of bending the housing curve in this community. It lacks the means, the capacity and wherewithal to be little more bystanders— watching home and rental prices spiral upwards.

I suspect everyone participating in that meeting last week— Council, Shire Hall staff and all those watching online—realized it too. The problem is too big, too complex and too hard for this local government.

Perhaps it always was. Maybe it is wrong to expect rural municipalities like this one to alter powerful market forces. And certainly, some of this excuse-making is understandable, now that the disease has progressed to fully engulf the patient.

The tragic bit is that there were things that could have been done a decade ago. Or even six years ago. They could have built more homes. Built townhomes. Built apartment buildings. They could have carved a workable path through the development minefield. They might have anticipated the growing demand and acted accordingly to ensure enough supply to meet it. It didn’t happen.

These arguments were made. Loudly. Often.

Councils past never managed to figure out how to expedite the Shire Hall machinery to get it done. There was always capacity, infrastructure and procedural constraints that proved insurmountable. This council is the same.

Many on this Council say affordable housing is a crisis. They say the words. Each year they throw a couple hundred thousand dollars at the problem—consumed mainly by one salary—and hope it does the trick. It hasn’t. Last week’s meeting demonstrates this institution will never solve this problem.

Yet, it must also be said that there is a bigger force at work here. Municipal leadership must row against an unrelenting tide of NIMBYism. I suspect that if a poll were taken, most residents would prefer not to see new subdivisions sprouting near them. Many aren’t thrilled by the prospect of tracts of new homes in their communities.

As the County’s population has been largely displaced by new arrivals, many of these folks believe they acquired the County just as it was on the closing date of their purchase. They are highly resistant to change. Of any kind. But especially the prospect of their view suddenly sprouting with multi-family buildings, townhomes and the like. It is not their vision of the County.

This sensibility has surely informed the lethargy that permeates planning approvals over the past decade. At least two residential developers—one in Picton the other in Wellington—have successfully appealed recently to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT) because the County was taking too long to make a decision.

The former Dukedome in Wellington closed its doors 12 years ago. It sits dormant, idle and pointless. Plans to redevelop this property for affordable homes were drawn up years before it was shuttered and a new arena was built. Yet, year after year, new plans emerge, and they drift away. The property ever more useless than the year before.

It has become a fitting monument to the stark inability of the municipality of Prince Edward County to do something tangible on this file.

It was during this sad meeting last week that the County’s manager, Marcia Wallace, noted that the municipality had failed to attract an intermediate planner recently who might have been able to expand the department’s processing capacity. Wallace observed that at least part of the problem stemmed from the lack of affordable housing.

Occasionally, leaders are called upon to lead. This is such a time.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca