Infinite problem

Motion asks to see affordable housing defined

Councillor Phil St-Jean’s motion to find out how affordable housing can be calculated, has gained the full support of his council colleagues. At last Thursday’s Committee of the Whole meeting, Council directed staff to prepare a report defining what affordable housing is, the estimated dollar amount that constitutes affordable housing and how exactly it can be achieved.

St-Jean first wanted to make it clear what he intended with his motion. “I don’t like it when people put words in my mouth,” said St- Jean. “Contrary to recent media coverage, this is not about one particular solution to affordable housing.” Instead, St-Jean is hoping to clearly define for the public what affordable housing is in Prince Edward County. “Once you achieve that, in my view, then you can formulate a plan to tackle the problem,” he said.

Part of the report from staff will include the options available through land use planning to achieve affordable ownership as well as affordable rental housing within the Picton, Wellington and Rossmore secondary plans. He emphasized that this report is not going to be the be all-end all solution, and the answers will not be determined overnight, but that it will at the very least allow for a clearer path to addressing the issue. St-Jean explained that he hears from a number of residents who don’t understand what affordable housing is. “That information needs to be more readily available,” he said.

In May of 2015, council received a 57-page housing policy implementation report that outlines many ways the County could address affordable housing. St-Jean believes it is time to finally see some action. “It’s time we move forward,” said St-Jean. “We owe it to the public to explain to them what exactly that means in Prince Edward County.”

Councillor Mike Harper asked if St-Jean’s motion had implications on the Official Plan that comes forward for discussion at a special meeting on February 24. St-Jean noted there may very well be modifications needed. “I believe there will be some implications. In fact the housing policy implementation report was part of the original review of the Official Plan and a lot of those recommendations were intended to be included in the Official Plan,” he said.

Councillor Ernie Margetson reminded the horseshoe that there is an affordable housing corporation, implemented by the municipality, that is already working on affordable housing solutions. “I just want to reinforce that the last council did set up the affordable housing corporation. This discussion and part of this motion keeps reoccuring. The affordable housing corporation was set up to address this. I had a stack of reports that came up to my knee when I started. There is a lot of info out there. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel and create more work for our staff when we did create the affordable housing corporation,” said Margetson. Councillor Brad Nieman agreed. “I don’t want to be doing double the work again. If someone already has this work done then why don’t we draw from that?” he asked.

CAO Marcia Wallace confirmed that the housing corporation would be a part of the work going forward. “The way I would see this proceeding is absolutely there is a lot of information and expertise in the housing corporation and I think that they will definitely be able to answer the first part of this, which is the way affordable housing is measured,” said Wallace. “The housing corporation can work on one project at a time. The question to us, as staff, is what else could we be doing given the fact that council approves a myriad of projects every month. What else could we be doing with our planning tools to approve housing outcomes beyond the single proejcts the housing corporation works on.”

Councillor Janice Maynard wanted to see the motion encompass the entire County. “I would prefer that we are saying housing within the County, because there might be some rural areas now that are providing affordable housing that we don’t want to lose. Let’s not lose track of the historic capacity of our rural areas to provide affordable rental housing,” said Maynard. Wallace noted that initially, staff would look at the overall context of affordable housing in the County. “I think we would start this with looking at the context overall, but the motion focuses on Secondary Plans because that is where the bulk of planning applications come from,” explained Wallace.

Maynard believes that if a solution is not found, it will change the County drastically. “This county is built on generational families, and I don’t want to see that end with our generation. The children of our children will not be able to live in Prince Edward County,” said Maynard.

Staff’s report is expected to be brought back to council before the end of June.