Two tenants are to join the mayor’s task force on housing, after the body’s initial composition was criticized for having too much corporate representation.

The proposed composition of the mayor’s task force on housing came under fire early in Tuesday night’s city council meeting.

In an address to council, citizen Ivan Stoiljkovic said the task force, proposed to find solutions to the city’s housing crisis, is made up primarily of “people that caused the housing problem.”

The proposed composition of the group includes senior executives from local housing companies, builders and the real estate sector.

Stoiljkovic said the committee had no representation from the poor or homeless communities or tenants.

City council agreed that a tenant should be on the committee and voted to add two of them from different groups.

“I think we need to have a tenant at the table,” said Sydenham District Coun. Peter Stroud, who suggested one of the tenant representatives come from a tenant or poverty advocacy group.

Stroud said the tenants needed to be knowledgeable enough to contribute to the task force’s work and could be a representative from a poverty or tenants group.

Mayor Bryan Paterson, who committed to establishing a housing task force at city council’s inaugural meeting in early December, said the people initially selected were chosen for their knowledge of the housing market.

“This is a big task,” Paterson said. “The challenge is city council cannot address this issue on its own.”

Paterson said a tenant was not originally selected because a single renter, or even two, cannot represent the experiences of all tenants.

Paterson said many people stepped forward to volunteer for the task force, and he said the group would be instructed to consult with as many groups as possible.

The 10-person committee is proposed to include current and former politicians and leaders in the local real estate sector.

The task force, with a proposed budget of $90,000, is to be given the job of coming up with ideas to tackle the availability and affordability of housing in the city.

The committee might meet as early as next week, Paterson said. Among the group’s first jobs is to select the new tenant members.

The task force promise was made a week after a study from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) showed the situation in Kingston — the tightest rental market in the province — got even worse in 2018.

CMHC’s annual rental market survey showed Kingston’s rental vacancy rate falling from 0.7 per cent in 2017 to a new record low of 0.6 per cent in 2018.

The task force is expected to “bring key stakeholders together to examine best practices and to explore all possible tools and incentives the city can offer, to enable developers, non-profits and community agencies to build more housing in general and more affordable housing in particular.”

The committee is to co-chaired by former Kingston and the Islands MP Ted Hsu and Kingscourt-Rideau District Coun. Mary Rita Holland.

Portsmouth District Coun. Bridget Doherty and Kieran Moore, the medical officer of health for Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox and Addington Public Health, are also to be on the committee.

Donna Janiac, vice-principal of finance and administration at Queen’s University, and former city councillor Beth Pater are also to be on the task force.

Those who know the local housing market best — professionals in the real estate market — fill out the remainder of the task force. They include Gennaro DiSanto, chief executive officer of CaraCo Group of Companies; Francine Moore, president of Homestead Land Holdings Ltd.; Indigenous housing advocate Robert Rittwage; and commercial real estate broker Martin Skolnick.