Film shows what might be possible for municipal affordable housing

FERGUS – Affordable housing is one of the major challenges facing municipalities, and Centre Wellington staff invited builders, developers and planning staff from other municipalities to hear about solutions working in other parts of the country.

Dr. Brian Doucet is an associate professor in planning at the University of Waterloo, and he has turned some of his research into a film.

That film, Thinking Beyond the Market, was screened at the Fergus Grand Theatre on June 24 and Doucet attended to take questions following the screening.

“We have spent a long time talking about how bad things are, and we all understand the scale of the problem,” he said before the screening began. “Now we need the bigger conversation about what to do about it.”

Those conversations must involve municipal, provincial and federal governments, developers, faith groups, non-profit groups and individuals, he said.

“I hope this film gives new insights. I hope it makes you think.”

In the film, Doucet travelled across the country highlighting some of the affordable housing projects that are working.

He profiled the housing project at St. Lawrence Market in Toronto, which was constructed in the 1970s and continues to offer market rent for 80 per cent of the units and affordable rent for 20 per cent of the units. Affordable is when housing costs make up 30% of income.

He looked at an affordable housing project on Block Line in Kitchener and another in Whistler, B.C., where 75% of workers in Whistler live in non-market housing.

The local government in Whistler started the Whistler Housing Authority in an effort to de-commodify housing and land speculation.

Both the Kitchener and Whistler projects used public land to build non-market housing.

Doucet travelled to Hamilton and spoke with residents of a building who were being reno-victed. Reno-viction, where landlords evict tenants, renovate, and then charge higher rents, is one cause of the loss of affordable housing, and some municipalities are passing bylaws to outlaw the practice.

The Jericho Lands project is a joint venture partnership between the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh (MST) Partnership, and Canada Lands Company (CLC) on land in Vancouver.

It will create a high density, mixed-use community and will embed and celebrate Indigenous culture in both planning and design.

The film also looked at rent control, building and planning policies, and non-profit housing.

After the film, Doucet noted it spoke to what municipalities can do, including passing policies and zoning bylaws that enable intensification and infill.

Solutions for rural Ontario, with its smaller tax base, will be different than in larger cities and in many ways are also more difficult, he said.

This is where building on municipal land can really pay off, he said, as well a setting rent control policies.

“It’s a political decision and small towns should be starting their own housing corporation and act as landlords,” he said. “Whistler shows us it can be a self-sustaining model.”

He said municipalities can have an impact on affordable housing.

“The idea of public land being sold for profit is the worst strategy a municipality can employ,” he said. “There’s opportunity to do something fundamentally different.”

Centre Wellington CAO Dan Wilson said council here has directed staff to develop a housing action plan and to look at available township land that might be suitable for low-income housing.

“(Those studies) will help outline our role,” Wilson said. “We’re going through that assessment. It’s a first step.”