JIM NEILL

In January, your new city council will be holding a series of meetings to set council priorities for the coming four years. Now is the time to share your ideas with your councillor and mayor.

First and foremost, like my colleagues on council, we heard from constituents that housing and homelessness are clearly troubling and universally recognized problems across Kingston. Having the lowest vacancy rate in Ontario (0.6 per cent) and the second lowest in Canada screams out for a comprehensive plan. Currently much of our upcoming developments are focused on apartments, condominiums and subdivisions that are top end and expensive. This does little to address the need for more affordable housing. A low vacancy rate merely drives up housing costs. Working people in Kingston too often are forced to spend over 60 per cent or more of their income on housing. This clearly doesn’t make Kingston a livable city for most people.

I applaud Mayor Bryan Paterson’s pledge to have a Mayor’s Task Force to address this. It’s critical that this include a broad cross-section of advocates and representatives of tenants and home owners, as well as for-profit and not-for-profit landlords and developers. It’s a complex problem that will need many community voices and all levels of government working together to find a comprehensive solution.

It will also need a capital commitment by the City of Kingston. We need to encourage both the provincial and federal governments to step up and recommit to supporting affordable housing. The city has to make a strong commitment to address this very real problem. This is “one can we can’t kick down the road.” Our capital commitment to land banking and supports for affordable housing development needs to be expanded. The federal and provincial governments need to partner with us to make this happen.

There are things in the Municipal Act and the Planning Act that give municipalities powers to enact initiatives to address this housing problem.

One thing is inclusive zoning. Today we have in our official plan a recommendation for 25 per cent affordable housing in new developments. Few, if any, for-profit developers follow this recommendation. Inclusionary zoning would make this a reasonable requirement rather than merely a recommendation. Other cities have done it; Kingston needs to.

Another thing to be considered would be “tiny houses” as infill possibilities. Our planning staff is now looking into this as a way to appropriately intensify Kingston. Hamilton has adopted this as a way to address the need for more affordable housing. There are appealing 300- to 600-square-foot prefab tiny houses on the market. Considering our affordable housing waiting list is over 1,200 and growing, with the greatest need for single adults, this could be a way to address this. In fact, the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing has an excellent document, “Municipal Tools for Affordable Housing,” that supports tiny houses, and the province has amended the Ontario Building Code to allow them. Kingston needs to embrace this.

We need sustainable affordable housing. We currently grant private developers $40,000 to $50,000 a unit to include affordable units in developments for 15 years. At the end of that time, they convert to full market. The city subsidizes those 15-year rents through a rent-geared-to-income program funded by the province, and other rent subsidy programs. The result is no risk to the landlord. This is hardly sustainable in the long run. It may benefit developers’ business plans, but this is not a long-term solution.

Not-for-profit co-operative housing is, I believe, the most sustainable model. These mixed affordable communities operate far beyond 15 years. The city needs to find ways to expand existing co-ops and help new ones to develop. CMHC mortgages and federal or provincial funding is not currently available, but it should be. It’s the most sustainable way to develop affordable, mixed housing. These developments pay taxes and pay off mortgages and create great communities. Non-profit co-op housing is a positive model that needs to be revisited. This would be a far better way of investing Kingston’s capital dollars, rather than subsidizing private developers.

Kingston can become a more affordable and livable city. We need the will to make it so. Hopefully our new council can commit to doing so.

Jim Neill is the city councillor for Williamsville District.