An affordable housing demonstration project is coming to Edinburgh Road, but other than that, council failed to take any action to address the housing affordability crisis in the city during its meeting on Tuesday.
It did, however, formally receive the staff-created draft housing affordability strategy which includes 33 actions to be considered in the future.
Council discussed creating a bylaw aimed at preventing renovictions last month and deferred those talks to this week’s meeting, but the idea didn’t move forward beyond its inclusion in the draft strategy which will now go out for public input.
“It’s deferred to now, so we can actually still address it now,” Mayor Cam Guthrie said after a delegate noted they expected to see it specifically mentioned on the agenda, which it was not.
No one on council called for the concept to be turned into a reality during Tuesday’s meeting.
Renoviction occurs when landlords evict tenants so they can renovate their unit and don’t allow the tenant to move back in at their previous rental rate, convert the unit for another use or demolish it.
Several delegates, including the one who expected renovictions to be a focus of the meeting, praised the draft affordable housing strategy as a whole, though some additional ideas were put forward.
“The vast number of Guelph residents are living with housing stress and for many the situation is dire,” explained Dominica McPherson of the Guelph & Wellington Task Force for Poverty Elimination. “It's not just those living with the lowest incomes who are struggling. Recent research from the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives found that even full-time, minimum wage workers cannot afford to rent in Guelph.”
Though many of the draft action items involve advocacy work, community education and monitoring the crisis, others include:
- purchase lands to build affordable housing that would be managed by Wellington County;
- consider a special tax on vacant homes as well as a renoviction bylaw;
- consider the purchase of multi-unit buildings on the market that could be turned into for affordable housing;
- establish financial incentives for affordable housing development, housing accessibility, and sustainable housing design;
- explore opportunities for a front-ending development agreements with builders, which would see them pitch in toward the cost of city services before construction begins;
- set a minimum dollar amount to be annually allocated to the city’s affordable housing reserve fund to help advance affordable housing initiatives;
- identify an annual target of new housing units that must be designed as universally accessible.
“This report demonstrates to me there is the desire to continue the conversations required to understand the truths of the issue while working toward permanent solutions,” commented delegate Morgan Dandie.
Daniel Kaufmann noted the issue of student housing is only referenced a few times throughout the draft strategy and called for more to be done. By building more student residences, it frees up larger units for families, he said.
There are about 2,000 student housing bedrooms already approved in the city, Coun. Leanne Caron stated, adding, “We’re not seeing them get built.”
In response, Krista Walkey, the city’s general manager of planning and development, said staff have “no firm answer” as to why developers haven’t moved ahead with those projects, noting some have lingered for up to 10 years.
Other ideas put forward on Tuesday include enhancing the city’s property tax deferral program and tax relief for co-ops and non-profit housing.
Coun. Linda Busuttil called for the creation of additional subsidized housing to be a priority.
“Our vulnerable population needs that the most,” she said. “It’s critical at this point.”
Now that council has received the draft strategy, staff is planning a series of five public engagement events later this month, along with presentations to various city and council advisory committees.
The final strategy, including a prioritization of action items, is expected to be presented to council for consideration on Dec. 10.
In terms of the affordable housing demonstration project, council agreed with a staff recommendation and declared the city-owned property at 14 Edinburgh Rd. to be surplus and ordered staff to issue a request for proposals for the site.
The demonstration project is to include at least 12 affordable units, at least three of which are to be fully accessible.
