By Jack Vanderkooy, Co-Lead, Social Finance & Affordable Housing Group, TISGB
In early October, approximately 70 Collingwood residents gathered at Trinity United Church, to participate in a panel discussion addressing the Affordable Housing situation. The evening, part of the church’s Trinity Talks series, was moderated by Terry Geddes, a former Mayor of Collingwood. The three panelists were Doug Linton, Chair of the Collingwood Affordable Housing Task Force, Claire de Souza, Collingwood Housing Development Coordinator and Jack Vanderkooy, Co-Lead of the Institute of Southern Georgian Bay’s Social Finance and Affordable Housing Group.
Doug reviewed the work and progress of the task force since 2021, including the creation of the master plan https://www.collingwood.ca/affordablehousing. The new mandate given by Council for the year ahead includes community engagement, communication and education related to affordable housing. He challenged the audience to understand all things related to affordable housing and to change the narrative as you discuss these topics with friends to ensure that we are an inclusive community with housing for all.
Claire spoke of initiatives the town has taken to enable more affordable housing. Included is the annual funding of an affordable housing reserve fund, streamlining the planning process, enabling and funding accessory residential units, by-law changes to allow up to 4 units per residential lot, and reduced parking requirements.
Jack introduced the work of The Institute for Southern Georgian Bay and how they seek to apply learnings across the whole region rather than one community at a time. Included in their work is:
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- Community Land Trusts as a vehicle to retain public lands for housing affordability;
- Non-Market Housing – Not for Profit housing providers – give them tools to create greater impact by building more;
- Co-operative housing initiatives; and
- Financial considerations to make housing more affordable.
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After the presentations there was time for questions from the audience:
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- How can we engage the private sector to address housing affordability?
- What income measures do we use to determine affordability and can we do more to educate the public on the benefit and economics of the Accessory Residential Units program?
- What tools are available to ensure government funding is going towards sustained affordability?
- How many units are required to solve the housing affordability and do we have the infrastructure to meet the need?
- What is the costing framework to affordability?
- How can we share resources for the benefit of the whole region?
- Can we challenge the town to set a goal for number of units and share that with the development community and partner with them towards meeting this goal?
- Can we cost out a municipal funding requirement for staff and other resources to address the issue of affordable housing?
- How does social finance contribute to the affordable housing solution.
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As the panel responded to these and other questions and comments, we are grateful for how our community is engaged in finding solutions. We realize that there is still much work to be done, but together change is possible.
Congratulations to the leadership at Trinity United Church for hosting Trinity Talks to engage the community in matters we are all concerned about. Special thanks to Beth Theis for her professional organization and promotion for these events. We are fortunate to have so many engaged members in our community.
See the handout that was given to attendees at this event, which answers the questions:
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- What is Affordable Housing?
- Why Affordable Housing Matters?
- Who is responsible for Affordable Housing?
- What is the Affordable Housing Task Force?
- Who is The Institute of Southern Georgian Bay (TISGB)?
- How to get Involved
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