“Build, build, build.”
That was the often-repeated message from Peterborough Mayor Jeff Leal as he announced the release of the 15-recommendation report of the Mayor’s Task Force for Housing Creation at a media event on Tuesday (November 5) in Peterborough’s East City.
The event took place near the site of Ashburnham Realty’s six-storey building currently under construction along the Rotary Greenway Trail just north of Robinson Street, part of a three-building residential-commercial development with two buildings already completed along the trail at Hunter Street East.
Several members of the task force were at the event, including Ashburnham Realty principal Paul Bennett and Habitat for Humanity Peterborough & Kawartha Region CEO Susan Zambonin, as well as city councillors Joy Lachica, Alex Bierk, Lesley Parnell, Keith Riel, and Kevin Duguay and city staff.
The mayor announced the creation of the task force last October, with a selection of builders and housing development professionals tasked in January with recommending specific actions the City of Peterborough can take to meet the provincial government’s housing target for Peterborough of constructing 4,700 new housing units by 2031.
Along with Bennett and Zambonin, other members of the task force are Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services policy director Chelsea Combot, Peterborough Homes principal Brian Fenton, Atria Development principal Hans Jain, Peterborough Housing Corporation former CEO Hope Lee, Peterborough & the Kawarthas Home Builders Association executive Rebecca Schillemat, and AON Inc. president and CEO Brad Smith.
Mayor Leal served as chair of the task force with councillor Duguay as vice chair, and councillors Riel and Dave Haacke providing input.
The recommendations of the task force’s report fall under three themes: speeding up development, cutting building costs, and fostering partnerships.
Mayor Leal addressed the report’s first two recommendations at Tuesday’s announcement.
“For multi-residential housing that meets a minimum unit threshold, we would guarantee an approval timeline of one year, from pre-construction to full land use approval, that would include both the planning, and site plan, and so on,” he said.
The one-year approval timeline would include both non-profit housing and commercial developments that propose at least 25 new dwellings (or at least 10 in the central area of the city).
To accomplish this “ambitious task,” the mayor said, the city would establish a dedicated group of staff, including a project manager, to make non-profit and multi-unit residential developments the priority.
The report’s second recommendation would see city staff identify, by April 2025, all studies, reports, plans, and drawings that the city currently requires for the development approval process, that are within municipal discretion to impose.
“(The city) will ask this fundamental question: is there something we can cut, or something that we can reduce?” Mayor Leal said. “Every discretionary requirement we appropriately remove will decrease the cost, and increase the speed of development.”
Other recommendations of the task force report include directing city staff “to identity, prioritize, and pre-zone underused properties” within the city’s strategic growth areas, providing financial incentives for multi-unit residential development projects (especially those incorporating affordable housing), and seeking “sustained funding from all levels of government to support incentive programs for affordable housing and Indigenous non-market housing.”
Following the event, the mayor told kawarthaNOW that Ashburnham Realty development was the type of higher density housing that was needed, especially given the costs of servicing land.
As for next steps, the mayor will bring the task force recommendations to city council in early December.
“I want to thank the members of the task force for sharing their time and expertise on this critical issue for our community,” Mayor Leal stated in a media release. “It was invaluable to hear about how we can improve our processes and policies from the builders who must navigate them each and every day. I believe these recommendations will make a difference for our community, and I encourage my council colleagues to support them when I bring the report forward next month.”
The task force’s complete report with all 15 recommendations is available on the City of Peterborough’s website.
