With affordable housing in short supply, the newly-elected city council will consider whether to use part of a city-owned lot for affordable housing during the 2023 budget deliberations.
The land at 26 Benner St. house a communication tower on an L-shaped lot that could be subdivided for residential uses. At the final meeting of this term of council Monday, they decided to task their incoming counterparts with considering the property for affordable housing projects.
The lot is 0.3 hectares in size, and if divided for housing purposes the portion hosting the tower will remain under city ownership.
An affordable housing committee report brought to council Monday afternoon recommended that no action be taken at this time.
There are currently no applications requesting a donation of land for affordable housing, and the city “does not have a ‘housing first’ policy whereby surplus lands owned by the municipality are developed for affordable housing purposes instead of selling such lands on the open market,” the report said.
However, committee chair Cam Davidson said the city should be considering numerous avenues to increase the city’s affordable housing supply.
“This lot provides an excellent opportunity for a tiny home pilot project or something of that nature; you could probably get a couple two-plexes or four-plexes in there,” Davidson said. “The idea is to build affordable housing wherever we can, whenever we can.”
To prepare the land for donation or sale, approximately $11,000 in costs will be incurred for the preparation of a reference plan by a land surveyor or the preparation of an opinion of value should the land be sold on the market.
Coun. Jay Fallis successfully proposed an amendment to the report’s recommendation, asking that council consider creating a lot for affordable housing during the upcoming budget.
“Over the past campaign, many of us heard from those at the door that said affordable housing was a big issue,” said Fallis who was re-elected in Ward 3.
“I heard of multiple experiences, and the sense I got hearing from many different council candidates about their platforms is that affordable housing was overwhelmingly important, and needed to be given more focus," said Fallis.
“I think this is something that we as a city can do – we can move this forward. In the grand scheme of things, it's very minor but could make a little bit of a difference on a problem that is very persistent throughout our city," said Fallis.
Although there are currently no proposals for land donations to build affordable housing, Fallis anticipates some will be coming in the near future.
“At the affordable housing committee, there was the suggestion that members could have an informal reach out to some nonprofit organizations to gauge whether there would be an interest in the property,” said Fallis, who has been a council appointee to the committee.
“We haven't received, yet, any formal proposals, but my understanding is that there could be some coming, so that's another reason to be moving this forward.”
