The local housing crisis was laid out on the council table this week.
A Collingwood employer said they've been turned down on 20 to 30 per cent of the employment offers they made because of the high cost of housing in town.
Another said half of their remote work employees have left Collingwood because of the cost of housing.
These were only a few of the comments heard during a recent employer roundtable event on the topic of Workforce Housing in Collingwood held between Town of Collingwood staff, County of Simcoe staff, local housing advocate Marg Scheben-Edey and 18 Collingwood employers. The results of the roundtable, as well as updates on what the town is doing to deal with Collingwood’s affordable housing crisis, were provided as part of a presentation provided during the Aug. 6 strategic initiatives standing committee meeting.
During the meeting, councillors gave initial approval for a new "rapid accessory dwelling unit deployment program." The aim of the program is to make it easier and faster for residents to build apartments onto their existing homes, garages, or properties.
“In a nutshell, this is about providing an awareness, education and promotional campaign to the community that will help them connect the dots between recognizing the housing crisis we’re in and channelling that desire to want to do something,” said the town’s strategic advisor Jason Reynar.
“We don’t need a dozen or two dozen units. We need hundreds of units,” he added.
Under the proposed rapid accessory dwelling unit deployment program, a town-led joint marketing and education campaign would be launched in the new year with a goal to motivate 1,000 homeowners to investigate the addition of an accessory dwelling unit on their property.
Of those initial homeowners that express interest, the town’s goal would be to have 100 of those approved to proceed. Of those approved homeowners, the target would be to have 40 new occupied units within one year from the start of the campaign’s launch.
Options currently being explored by town staff to aid homeowners in fast-tracking their projects as part of the program include having simplified application forms, a flat nominal fee for approvals for participants, pre-packaged financing options/loans, connections to pre-qualified vendors, contractors and paralegals to help and online calculation tools.
“These are really tangible steps that we can move forward with,” said Coun. Deb Doherty during Tuesday’s meeting. “I’m very excited.”
During the employer round table event, local employers also shared ways they have tried to help with the housing crisis in Collingwood to attract more workers. Some employers have offered first-time-home-buyer assistance for employees while others have offered on-site housing options.
Reynar noted some other actions the town is currently engaged in to address the housing need in town, such as making amendments to the Official Plan, hiring a housing development co-ordinator who is expected to start this month, creating an affordable housing website which is expected to launch at the end of September and participating in the third Collingwood World Summit with a focus on affordable housing at the end of October.
UPDATE: The report and its recommendations were approved during the Sept. 20 regular meeting of council by a unanimous vote. Coun. Bob Madigan was absent from the meeting.
