Population and Housing

[tomh009]

They can only negotiate affordable housing contributions (whether cash or actual affordable units) when the developer asks for bonusing. And what we are getting is pretty limited.

I think a better option would be to include an affordable housing charge as part of the development charges. Setting it at even $500 for apartments, $750 for townhouses and $1000 for single-family homes (about 5% of current regional development charges, which are roughly half of the total) would generate roughly $50M/year regionally for affordable housing. And it's really not a significant cost increase for a new home.

I don't see why only condo developers should contribute, it should be the same for the developers creating new subdivisions?

I think there's a lot to like in this idea. Would this be in addition to advocating for the province to get back to building and maintaining social and supportive housing? If we believe housing should be affordable in our cities, it only makes sense to me that we use our collective resources (taxes) to pay for it.

It absolutely should be. I do think Kitchener got some money ($2M?) from the provincial government for affordable housing, asunlikely as that does seem. But, maybe there is hope that continuing to pressure them will result in some improvements as well. They can collect HST and income tax, the region and the cities cannot, so they have a better capability for funding this.