During a discussion this week about the County of Simcoe's strategy aimed at tackling the affordable housing crisis, one area mayor suggested it may be time to think outside the box.
Bradford West Gwillimbury Mayor James Leduc wondered if the county had ever looked outside rentals.
“Affordability is all about offering up first-time home buyers, senior citizens downsizing … we own 33,000 acres of forest. We want to be good environmentalists, but at the same time you will either have tents in those forests or you can open up some acreage in those areas and create housing opportunities," he said.
"We could be the complete developer from front to finish,” added Leduc, pointing to modular-style housing units as a potential option. “If we’re going to be a housing corporation, I’d like to think bigger and into areas we can tap into to create revenue sources. There’s a big return on investment and we could fill that back into more housing, more rentals and the whole system.
"I am not here to beat down forests, but I’m also saying we have a housing crisis in this county alone … (so) we need to think bigger and outside the box.”
While Orillia Coun. Jay Fallis didn’t necessarily agree with the idea of taking over local forests for housing, he did acknowledge there are more people seeking affordable housing in the county than there are units to go around.
“I would suggest it’s tougher to get affordable housing within in the county than it is to get Taylor Swift tickets, which is saying a lot,” he said, noting a recent application process for an Orillia project saw 375 applications within one day of the process being open, and 3,000 over the course of a month as an example.
Earlier in the meeting, board members with the Simcoe County Housing Corporation got a close-up view of the Simcoe County Housing Corporation Affordable Housing (SCHC) master plan this week, which included a ranking of the region’s affordable housing projects for the next decade, including two in Barrie.
“The master plan is what I like to call a chapter in the 10-year affordable housing and homelessness prevention strategy that we will be bringing as a system service manager once the province signs off," Mina Fayez-Bahgat, the county's general manager of social and community services, explained during the board’s meeting on May 28.
"This plan is looking at the assets we own as a housing corporation and what future potential we have to create more affordability with those assets,” he added.
During the meeting, county staff, including director of social housing Brad Spiewak and housing development program supervisor Rachelle Hamelin, provided an overview of what challenges the county has been facing and how they’ve “pulled it all together.”
“We have run a long time in the SCHC without a plan. We are seeing not just a housing affordability crisis on the low end of affordability, where traditionally SCHC … have concentrated, but are seeing demand right through — whether it’s in the missing middle that you hear about (or in) employment housing etc,” said Spiewak.
“A lot of working folks are finding it much harder to find housing than it ever used to be," he added. "This does broaden that scope, and the mixed-income model certainly makes sense for a number of financial reasons, but also socially in looking at the need in the community. We are hopefully trying to bring all of that together.”
Hamelin said the master plan's goal is to prioritize development over the next 10 years. This includes planning projects in the short, medium and long term so that the county can achieve affordable housing goals.
It would also allow for the creation of a pipeline of development in various stages through that 10-year period, she added, which means the county will not have to wait to get approval for the next project. Instead, it will allow them to always have one in the works.
“This would allow the county to respond to funding announcements," Hamelin said. "Sometimes they come rather quickly and we need to be ready for those opportunities. Also, we would like to be prepared for long-term funding commitments that we expect from upper levels of government."
All of this would allow SCHC to be a “community leader in high-performance, purpose-built rental," she said.
To help prepare for the master plan, an inventory of SCHC-owned properties was taken, which included taking a closer look at what is offered to tenants. That, in turn, would allow them to know what is already existing when they seek approvals to build housing, Hamelin said.
“Essentially, the master plan is proposing prioritization of projects moving forward,” she said.
A number of factors go into this, said Spiewak, including a call for proposals that went out to all the municipalities and as well as a request for information sent to private developers and not-for-profits.
“There are some internal constraints and balls we have to juggle, as well as some external," he said. "The external ones can be quite problematic and … (it) comes down to sewer and water. In some cases, we have some great opportunities, however the sewer and water infrastructure may not be in place yet or needs to be expanded. Internally, a big aspect of this is finances, but also looking at resources."
The first project on the priority list, according to the plan, is located in Barrie at 20 Rose St., which Spiewak noted is “in a state of readiness" and is going through various approvals with the City of Barrie.
The estimated $217-million development, consisting of two apartment towers of nine- and 11-storey buildings, is designed to include “diverse or mixed housing types, including rent-geared-to-income, affordable housing, along with space for social, health and community partners,” according to a county handout at a recent neighbourhood meeting.
The Rose Street plan is followed by a project in the Midland-Penetanguishene area.
“The next one is an important one that we often lose sight of and one myself and my team have desperately been trying to get funding for through various other levels of government," Spiewak said.
"Up in the Midland and Penetang area, we have a number of houses, and the one portfolio we have about 66 of them … almost half of those houses are ripe for the picking for creating second suites," he added. "We know we can make a secondary suite … for around $150,000 per unit. This is a little bit of an untapped potential that we can do fairly economically."
Spiewak then pointed to a project in Collingwood, which he said makes sense for a “newer modular type of construction,” would allow for faster construction and is a lower cost per unit than traditional-style construction.
The potential relocation of the rapid rehousing modular structure, currently located at 20 Rose St. in Barrie, to a property at Vespra and Victoria streets, not far from the downtown, is listed among the top five priorities as well.
“Obviously, we need to get that out of the way so we can get the main construction going and there’s great need in the City of Barrie to get some supportive rapid rehousing programs up and running," Spiewak said.
Projects around the county
Other projects on the list included those in Elmvale, Wasaga Beach and Angus in the shorter term, while projects under the “phase two'' implementation and development framework included two in Collingwood, one in Barrie at 393 Blake St., an Oxford Street project in Orillia as well as two in the Midland-Penetanguishene area.
“There’s a list of projects where things didn’t pan out in the first phase or there’s some horsetrading going around, but there are a number of back-pocket projects that could be there should funding come around," Spiewak said. "We like to think we have at least a framework that’s been laid out.
“There’s lots of engagement and that will continue to happen," he added. "The other big thing is cost-sharing with other levels of government. The county can’t do this on their own and financially it would be a huge burden.”
Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall said he sees the new building at 20 Rose St. is listed as up for design this year, and asked if that means shovels won’t make it into the ground in 2024.
Spiewak said the goal is to get the footings and foundation for the parking structure in the ground this year, so that part of the project can be complete by January 2026. Once that's done, the construction of the main structure can begin.
