Local Ottawa affordable housing advocates are supporting a bill that would give cities the power to make developers build more affordable units, but Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi won’t say if it will get his vote.
Ottawa ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) held a rally at an apartment building on Gloucester Street last month in support of Liberal MPP Peter Milczyn’s private member’s Bill 39.
The bill includes an “inclusionary zoning” provision that would allow municipalities to set enforceable minimum thresholds for affordable units in new developments.
Non-profit housing provider Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation also wants the bill passed.
“We like to think we’re a pretty good non-profit developer, and that we’re really making a difference in closing Ottawa’s housing affordability gap. The truth is, the gap is just too big for us to tackle alone,” the organization says on its website.
Curtis Bulatovich runs Ottawa ACORN’s youth program and has been on a waiting list for an affordable place to live for five years.
He says inclusionary zoning would help people in his situation get housing without raising taxes.
“It’s a win-win,” Bulatovich says.
“We need to focus on getting this passed swiftly in order to ensure we are serving these marginalized people with actual affordable housing.”
Naqvi says he needs to “learn more and understand more” about whether the bill will create more affordable housing before he decides to support it.
“I look forward to that discussion and debate around that particular issue. It’s an important conversation to be had,” he says.
The bill passed second reading last fall and goes before a Queen’s Park committee in the spring.
Critics of inclusionary zoning say it would make new home buyers foot the bill for affordable housing.
“We don’t feel it’s fair to ask a very small group of new homebuyers to carry the cost of this social subsidy,” says John Herbert, executive director of the Greater Ottawa Homebuilders Association.
“If society feels that we need to put additional resources into social housing, then the cost of that should be spread evenly across the tax base at large, not just on the shoulders of a few people buying a new home.”
Ray Sullivan, executive director of the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corp., says he doesn’t think inclusionary zoning “will necessarily lead to a massive increase” to the cost of market housing.
Sullivan says the cost will be absorbed into the price of land because land is valued based on its predicted worth once it’s developed.
Inclusionary zoning, Sullivan says, would be no different from other requirements builders already have to meet to get a development proposal approved.
“There are requirements that set out how big your garage door can be, how far from the sidewalk the front door can be, where the sidewalk can be in relation to the neighbourhood,” he says.
“This would be one additional thing just like that.”
Ottawa already has a target of 25 per cent affordable units in new developments and redevelopments, but it’s up to developers whether or not they meet it.