Sarnia exceeds provincial year-one housing target

Sarnia smashed its target for home-building in the first year of a provincial program.

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With 94 housing starts, and 160 long-term care beds added, the city had 254 units built, according to the official tally from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

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That result — 348 per cent of the city’s 73-unit target — could also adjust higher because the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. doesn’t currently track data about housing conversion projects in Sarnia, a letter from Minister Paul Calandra’s office to Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley says.

Ministry officials are working with city staff to source that data, it says.

Regardless, year one of an eight-year campaign to meet or exceed Sarnia’s housing target, to be eligible for building faster fund dollars, is met.

Details on what exceeding the target means in terms of actual money for the municipality could come in March, Bradley said.

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Other municipalities aren’t having as easy a time, with more difficult targets, he said.

“It appears to me Sarnia could be one of the first to access these funds.”

Ontario has assigned about 50 municipalities housing targets to help meet its goal of building 1.5 million new homes by 2031.

Sarnia’s target to 2031 is 1,100.

Bradley was required to accept strong mayor powers for Sarnia to have a shot at the fundingand city council in November agreed to the target and a municipal housing pledge.

City staff at the time estimated Sarnia could get up to $840,000 for making its share of the provincial target — 73 units in 2023, 83 in 2024 and 100 in 2025.

How much funding Sarnia gets a year isn’t clear, Bradley said.

Hopes are whatever the amount is can be put toward servicing for more affordable housing projects in the community, he said.

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“That, to me, is what this is all about,” Bradley said. “It’s not building $1-million mansions; it’s trying to reduce the misery index in the city.”

Sarnia’s target is very possible, he said.

For about six years recently, Sarnia averaged issuing permits for 143 units a year, and the city already has approved 2,450 units that have yet to be built, city staff said in November.

Municipalities having a harder time meeting their targets are trying to get credit for similar approvals waiting in the queue, Bradley noted.

In Sarnia “some of them have been sitting there for a decade to be developed,” he said.

“And what the municipalities are saying is we should get credit for that because we’ve approved that, and now it’s up to the developers.”

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Sarnia council also recently approved grants for more affordable housing in the community.

The city’s affordable rental housing community improvement plan offers grants for projects throughout the city on building permits, feasibility studies, for creating additional units in existing buildings, and it freezes property tax increases for 10 years.

All projects must meet the provincial government’s affordable rental housing definition, not exceeding 30 per cent of a person’s income, in the 60th percentile of gross annual incomes for rent households in the applicable local municipality, city officials said.

Relaxed parking space requirements for apartment buildings in the downtown and mixed-use areas are also part of the plan, and provincial legislation gives development charge exemptions, city community services general manager Stacey Forfar said.

Combined, for a four- or five-storey apartment building, the savings could add up to around $360,000, she said.

“These are significant incentives to help support more affordable housing,” she said.

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