“We’ve got to do something because the housing problem just gets more serious by the day.” So said the CAO of Hastings County Jim Pine as he, County Warden Bob Mullin, and members of the Eastern
Ontario Wardens’ Caucus (EOWC) spoke to Belleville council Monday.
Pine said the EOWC is spearheading a project leading to the construction of 7,000 affordable rental units in seven years across Eastern Ontario, from Northumberland up to Haliburton and across to the Cornwall area.
It’s called the “7 in 7” plan.
Pine said there were around 14,000 people on the wait list for affordable or social housing in Eastern Ontario, and about 3,200
in Hastings County alone and the list was growing longer quickly.
Pine says a public/private sector partnership featuring significant government support from all levels of government could lead
to about 21,000 rental units being built. He added that considering past experience it usually takes about 70% government support
to attract the private sector to become involved in affordable housing projects.
“And in the experience that many of us have had in our jurisdictions working with the private sector when we’ve been able to partner with them and work together they will build additional units on their own at the market rent.”
Pine said the EOWC estimates the cost, not including land acquisition or servicing, of building 7,000 units would be $3.1 billion.
“So we had some research done saying it has about a three times multiplier so if we’re spending about $3 billion to get 7,000 units built it generates a multiplier effect of about $9 billion in the economy.”
Pine said Eastern Ontario would be divided into six zones with $813 million being allocated to Hastings, Lennox and Addington, and Prince Edward counties for the construction of just over 1,800 affordable rental units over the seven-year period.
A rough estimate of units per county would be 1,400 in Hastings, just under 300 in Lennox and Addington, and 156 in Prince Edward.
The EOWC has enlisted the services of an experienced consulting firm, KWM, to prepare a detailed business case for the plan hopefully leading
to a pilot project getting underway in the fall of this year.
Hastings County Warden Bob Mullin had this to say at the end of the presentation.
“The EOWC is good at delivering big regional projects. Our broadband expansion work through the Eastern Ontario Regional Network is an example of solving a problem region-wide. We are ready to take that experience and translate it into the “7 in 7″ project. We are hopeful that your council sees the merit in this approach and will support our efforts to convince the federal and provincial governments to partner with us as well.”
All councillors supported the concept.
.
