GUELPH – Wellington County will be providing approximately $7 million to its seven lower-tier municipalities to tackle affordable housing – but council approval didn’t come easy.
The staff recommendation to allocate the funds came from a previous administration, finance and human resources committee meeting.
A lengthy county council discussion took place on May 29, with staff recommending funds previously set aside for the recently cancelled Continuum of Care project – approximately $7 million – be made available to lower-tier municipalities for housing projects.
Each municipality would receive up to $1 million.
Due to cost estimates rising from $88 million to $135 million, the Continuum of Care project, which was to house as many as 400 people, was terminated last November.
“We have a housing crisis that exists today,” Warden Chris White told council last week.
He explained the idea behind the $7 million was to attempt to “leverage something that might work in our communities.”
“We’ve tried to make this flexible because everybody might have a different idea,” White said.
“Each township has an opportunity to the township themselves or partners in their community to come up with an innovative way to take this million dollars and figure out how to get some gap housing in there.
“The goal here is to try to invest this money to get some affordable housing going as quickly as we can.”
According to the committee report:
- each municipality may access up to $1 million maximum;
- municipalities may apply for several projects, provided the request does not exceed the maximum;
- projects may take advantage of opportunities offered by non-profit organizations and/or private sector concerns, and must be designed to meet local needs as determined by local municipal council;
- applications must identify location and number of units, target demographic of the purchaser, type of accommodation and expected unit price range or rental rate;
- rental projects designed to be incorporated into private sector developments must indicate location and number of units, target demographic, type of accommodation, expected affordable rental rates and term of affordability;
- if requested, county housing staff can provide advice on potential projects prior to submission of an application by the municipality;
- applications will be presented to county’s administration, finance and human resources committee;
- following approval, the county and local municipality will enter into a contract for the transfer and use of funds;
- funds will be released to the municipality on a schedule agreed to by local and county treasurers;
- applications will be received until Sept. 30, 2026;
- projects must have all local permissions in place no later than Dec. 31, 2027;
- funds not accessed by Dec. 31, 2027 will be deemed forfeited;
- the development fund will close the earlier of Dec. 31, 2027 or when the $7 million has been allocated; and
- any unallocated funds or forfeited funds will be returned to the county’s housing development reserve fund.
Lloyd was unhappy with the lack of discussion council had regarding finer details.
She requested council separate a section from the original motion focusing on funding criteria.
“I’m asking for staff to facilitate a workshop on the alternate housing development criteria for council, so that we can recommend a proposal of disbursement of the $7 million for housing initiatives to our member municipalities,” she said.
Lloyd explained the importance for council to discuss ideas and outline the desired end results.
“[This] is $7 million and this is from tax levies that we’ve got from our residents and we want to treat that with respect,” she said.
“We want to encourage these projects in our lower tier municipalities, but we want to do it the right way.”
White explained his fears that council may never get a consensus on a “complicated, difficult issue,” adding the issue of timelines.
“To be clear, if the money is not utilized, it will be returned to the social housing fund,” he said.
Lloyd questioned why the funds would return to the social housing fund – which also provides funds for projects in Guelph.
“We have to be very careful how we handle those funds because we don’t want them to fall into a system that treats it differently. We want to keep it as county funds,” she said.
County treasurer Ken DeHart replied to Lloyd stating, “just to be clear, these funds were originally raised by county taxpayers for the continuum of care.
“So when that project didn’t move forward, we moved the money into the county’s housing development reserve, which we use to fund the county’s own social or affordable housing initiatives.”
He noted, the money not used will go back into the county’s housing reserve fund and it won’t be shared with the City of Guelph.
Councillor Andy Lennox, although grateful the county is taking “some” action regarding the housing crisis, said he is “haunted by what I call three major paradoxes with this recommendation.”
Firstly, “while our strategic plan highlights making the best decisions as a high priority for us, I struggle to see how this can be the best decision when we don’t know all the information.”
He also noted the county’s lack of time and resources to complete a community scan (descriptive analysis of an area), which was recommended in a previous March meeting.
“The one that I’m finding most difficult is, if I look at the document in county culture that we hold proudly, it values leadership and excellence in our actions,” Lennox explained.
“This is the same organization that created the Green Legacy project, [which is] not part of our mandated requirements but met the need of the day.
“Yet the best we can do on this, the most important issue of our time, is to delegate it to the local municipalities.”
White replied, “The intention here isn’t to dump it on lower tier municipalities and say goodbye.”
The county is using the municipalities as a “touching point into the communities.”
Councillor Campbell Cork stated the proposal is too open ended and lacks focus.
“We know what the goal is; it’s this gap,” White said.
“If we knew the answer to gap housing, we’d have it … what we’re trying to do here is open our eyes to some potential innovative ways to tackle the problem.”
To help simplify the discussion, White separated Lloyd’s motion into two parts – one half for the criteria and the other for the workshop.
Council approved the criteria first with councillors Lloyd, Cork and Earl Campbell opposed.
“My concern is with the workshop,” stated chief administrative officer Scott Wilson.
“There’s got to be heavy political input into the design of it.
“I implore council to enter into this cautiously and pass a motion that is achievable … we have to know exactly what we’re going to get out of this and what the end results are.”
Because the two motions were voted upon separately, Lloyd ultimately withdrew her motion as the criteria had been passed moments before.
“That motion I placed before you is kind of backwards because you’ve already set what the criteria is here,” she said.
“At this point you’ve basically said what you want so you can withdraw the motion.”
