During an upcoming summit in the Haliburton Highlands, Places For People is bringing together various stakeholders to explore the region’s housing needs and potential solutions.
Places For People, in conjunction with the County of Haliburton, is co-hosting the third annual Haliburton County Housing Summit from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday (October 24) at the Minden Hills Community Centre, located at 55 Parkside St. in Minden.
Organizers say this year’s summit will recognize the progress being made to create the housing needed by the people who live and work in the county, with the target audience for the summit “anyone who wants to do something about our housing challenge,” Places for People founder Fay Martin told kawarthaNOW.
“Everyone can make a contribution,” Martin said. “Only if everyone puts their shoulder to the wheel will we accomplish what’s needed. Hopefully we will see developers who want to be part of the solution and employers trying to find ways of housing their employees.”
“Everyone is welcome, including members of the public who want to see change and help make it.”
The day will begin with a welcome from Liz Danielson, warden of Haliburton County, and Bob Carter, mayor of Minden Hills, who have provided use of the facility for free, along with Patti Tallman, CEO of Haliburton County Development Corporation, which is funding the event.
As with previous summits, the format will open and close with experts from outside of Haliburton and feature two local panels on housing densification and worker housing.
“We’ll learn about the work similar communities are doing that we might adapt and explore new models and strategies with local leaders, other experts, and community members,” a media release noted.
What would be the best possible outcome of the summit?
“Action,” said Sherry Lawr, Places for People’s co-chair of marketing and communications. “What we’d love to see is, following the summit, all the potential partners and stakeholders continue the momentum we will no doubt gain and move the mountain towards action.”
“There is a lot of goodwill in this community and many like ours. We just need to find ways to say yes — yes, we can.”
Guest speakers for the day are Claire de Souza and Joe Gallivan.
Claire de Souza is housing development coordinator for the City of Collingwood and the city’s first “concierge,” a newly created position designed to facilitate a pro-active approach to attracting, supporting, and streamlining building of the kind of housing the city’s community needs, including accessory dwelling units as well as larger projects.
Joe Gallivan, senior planner with the County of Frontenac, will explain how the creation of a municipal utility corporation helped the municipality address the cost and inefficiency of insuring private water and wastewater systems.
The first of two panel discussions will be on the challenges of finding housing for workers.
“Workers need private transportation, a sturdy vehicle, and the rate of pay they receive tends not to account for the cost in efficiency of how spread out and unreliable the work is,” said Martin, who will moderate the panel. “Even well-paid professionals, such as tradespeople and senior-level staff, struggle to find appropriate housing, even if it’s affordable.”
Algonquin Highlands Township councillor Sabrina Richards, owner of Big Hawk Lake Marina, is one of the three panellists. She will share her experience as a business owner who feels she has no choice but to provide housing for her employees.
Xavier Masse from the Haliburton School of the Arts will bring attendees up to speed on the school’s new student residence, and consider if and how adding this resource will impact the local housing picture for workers.
Gary Dyke, CAO of Haliburton County, will provide an update on a proposal to use county-owned property for an integrated housing project the came out of discussions from the 2023 summit.
The second of the two panel discussions will explore how small housing densification projects are becoming a factor in meeting housing needs.
Developer Richard Carson, owner of Hot Pond Enterprises Corp., will describe the process of working with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to fund an 18-unit housing project, which will include affordable housing, currently underway in Haliburton Village.
Susan Zambonin, Habitat For Humanity Peterborough & Kawartha Region, will discuss how the organization’s successful medium-density development in Peterborough could be adapted for application in Haliburton County on one or more properties currently under consideration.
Kirstin Maxwell, CEO of Kawartha Lakes Haliburton Housing Corporation, will describe recent progress on projects in the Kawartha Lakes and Haliburton.
Those who interested in attending the October 24 summit are asked to RSVP by emailing Fay Martin at fay@placesforpeople.ca. For more information about Places For People, visit www.placesforpeople.ca
