Sensing need, Island municipalities move to create more affordable housing

Three of the largest municipalities in the province are looking at ways to get more affordable housing in their communities.

Charlottetown, Summerside and Stratford are all at different stages of their plans, but the three all agree on one thing: the need is great.

The City of Summerside is moving forward on a plan hatched last summer to build more units.

The city put out a expression of interest (EOI) for developers to bring more units to the city's downtown core. Five applications were received and now the city is working with one of the developers on the next steps.

At Monday night's council meeting, a motion passed to apply for gas tax money. The amount is in excess of half a million dollars and would go toward covering the city's portion of any infrastructure that would be needed for the project

Mayor Bill Martin couldn't give many details of the project yet, but the EOI called for a multi-storey complex of at least 40 affordable units, which would also have ground floor space for business, retail or restaurants.

"If you look around, you will recognize that there are some empty spaces in the downtown core, perhaps some spaces that could be taken down and replaced with a new structure," he said.

Martin said in Summerside, there are hundreds of people in need of a space that they know of and that this project will also help revitalize the downtown.

"Affordable housing by definition would see the rates be 15 per cent below comparable market value. That's significant in and of itself," he said. "When you combine new affordable housing with populating a downtown, it's kind of a winning combination."

Martin said this particular proposal will not go ahead without the gas tax funding but he is optimistic about the application.

Stratford doing its homework

The town of Stratford already owns and operates an affordable housing property.

The Stratford Seniors Complex is a 15-unit building that is funded through CMHC, but Mayor David Dunphy said more spaces will be needed down the road.

"Stratford is a growing community and it will continue to grow, " he said. "Certainly our seniors population, sort of the baby boomers generation, they're coming to the point where they're retiring and looking to have different housing options and affordable housing is something that may be necessary for those people."

In anticipation of more federal funding down the road, Dunphy has met with provincial Minister Tina Mundy to discuss the town's need. Staff have also been busy getting prepared.

"We're also doing some analysis of what we can do in Stratford," he said. "Some different models, different options, different locations to see what's available for a housing development in Stratford that could be used."

"So we're doing some homework and some leg work if you will so that when the time comes, if the funding is available we'll have a lot of work already done and we'll be able to move very quickly."

A new policy for Charlottetown 

In Charlottetown, the city's chief administrative officer, Peter Kelly, is busy drafting a policy to encourage the development of affordable housing.

He is also looking at the viability of the city's involvement in building and managing units.

Some of the ideas that have been brought forward by Mayor Clifford Lee to make that work would be tax incentives for developers and changing some of the density requirements to allow for higher buildings.

He also suggested looking at integrating low income units with seniors and some market value units to create mixed neighbourhoods.

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