{"id":34275,"date":"2024-02-29T11:52:47","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T16:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=34275"},"modified":"2024-03-07T11:44:57","modified_gmt":"2024-03-07T16:44:57","slug":"mayor-talks-affordable-housing-in-annual-chamber-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/mayor-talks-affordable-housing-in-annual-chamber-address\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor talks affordable housing in annual Chamber address"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Affordable housing was a top-of-mind issue last Wednesday when Mayor Tom Mrakas delivered his annual \u201cState of the Town\u201d address to the local business community at a luncheon hosted by the Aurora Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Held at the Royal Venetian Mansion on Industrial Parkway South, the event was attended by local business leaders, Council members, Members of Parliament Tony Van Bynen (Newmarket-Aurora) and Leah Taylor Roy (Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill), and Provincial representatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As much as it was an opportunity for the Mayor to tout business success stories, it was also a chance to discuss important economic issues facing Aurora \u2013 including affordable housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re facing a generational housing crisis,\u201d said Mayor Mrakas in his presentation. \u201cThe reality is that while we\u2019re still considered a relatively affluent community, there is still a lot of people here struggling to make ends meet, families and individuals going paycheque to paycheque.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Mayor Mrakas did not address Council\u2019s decision the previous week to block the development of a 55-bed transitional and emergency housing building for men on Yonge Street at Industrial Parkway South, he underscored Aurora\u2019s efforts to meet the goals set out in the municipality\u2019s Housing Pledge last fall to facilitate 8,000 new housing units by 2031.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such effort, he said, was ongoing work related to Aurora\u2019s Downtown Streetscape project. While this will see significant improvements that will benefit local businesses, he said, it will also facilitate housing in the downtown core by making it \u201ccheaper to build housing as the urban design work that we traditionally require developers to undertake will already be done by the Town.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe reality is we\u2019re redirecting a lot of our expected population growth to the downtown as well as the GO Major Transit Station Area (MTSA),\u201d he said. \u201cI think all of you know I am very passionate about housing in general and that is because this is one of the most important roles we can play as a municipality in shaping our community. I have advocated hard to protect the Town\u2019s autonomy in local planning matters and I am thankful this advocacy has paid off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A \u201cgreat new relationship\u201d forged between the Town and Paul Calandra, Ontario\u2019s Minister of Housing, has resulted in the reversal of what Mayor Mrakas described as \u201cbad land use decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will strongly advocate for what we need and strongly oppose any measure imposed on us by other levels of government if they do not align with our vision for the community,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the same time, we have to be very real about the crisis we\u2019re facing. We urgently need more housing. We\u2019re expected to grow to more than 85,000 people by 2051 with over 41,000 jobs here in Aurora. It\u2019s vital that we build the kind of housing that people coming to Aurora can actually afford.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fewer people can afford single-family detached homes, he said, but, at the same time, \u201cwe simply don\u2019t have the space to build that many more detached homes\u201d in the community. Therefore, more options are needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur businesses\u2026.need people, need customers, need employees,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want talented, dedicated, and hard-working people to come here and grow and strengthen our community. The reality is that many people who want to live here end up living elsewhere because it\u2019s cheaper. The good news is we\u2019re taking this very seriously and so are our Provincial and Federal colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLate last year I signed our housing pledge to the province, a commitment to ensure that 8,000 new homes are built over the next seven years. To support this, the Province set up its $1.2 billion Building Faster Fund where they will provide funding to municipalities who are on track to meet their housing targets to help with the infrastructure costs needed to support new developments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOver the next few years, things are going to ramp up here in Aurora. Just this year alone, we approved more than $174 million in new construction across the Town. We\u2019re hitting our Regional growth targets and we got 1,000 more units that just came into the pipeline from two new developments on Berczy and Metcalfe. I know development can often be a touchy subject in our community. Some are concerned with the pace of development, construction, and worried about our stable neighbourhoods and the character of our Town. Some stress to me the need to build, to do our part to ensure an entire generation of young people aren\u2019t left behind, priced out of ever owning a home. Our vision is to grow responsibly, strategically, in a way that protects our built form while fostering the development of much-needed housing options now and into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it is a \u201ctouchy subject,\u201d the Mayor also stressed Council\u2019s protection of heritage properties \u2013 18 new designations in the last year \u2013 as well as the importance of protecting Aurora\u2019s so-called \u201cstable neighbourhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI won\u2019t make any apologies for protecting any of these heritage properties,\u201d he said. \u201cI really do believe we have the ability to strike a balance, building the housing we need while protecting our built form heritage. One key way we\u2019re going to do this is by exploring as-of-right pre-zoning along Leslie and Bayview, and in our downtown and around the GO Station. Pre-zoning means developers and property owners won\u2019t have to go through a long process of rezoning their land to build. It is already done for them. They know exactly what they can build as-of-right and our community knows what\u2019s allowed to be built in our Town. We will, of course, give careful consideration to the allowable heights and densities to ensure new builds fit with our community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe made sure our updated OP (Official Plan) is ready so we can implement a community planning permit system, another tool that combines zoning, site plan, and minor variances processes into one application with shorter approval timelines. Our hope is that policies like this will result in not just more condos but also what we call \u2018missing middle\u2019 housing: townhouses, stacked duplexes, fourplexes and secondary and garden suites. That\u2019s because we know that housing affordability depends on housing diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Affordable housing within the OP is defined as housing that does not exceed 30 per cent of lower-to-medium-income earners\u2019 yearly take-home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis kind of affordable housing is not always what developers want to build. It simply is not as affordable. We cannot rely on or expect a private business to address a public need. That is why government, including us, need to incentivize our development partners in building more affordable units, and that includes purpose-built rentals. That\u2019s precisely what we\u2019re doing by developing our own Made in Aurora Affordable Housing Action Plan and Affordable Housing Toolkit, which we worked on with Toronto Metropolitan University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re actively looking at implementing policies like an Affordable Housing Community Improvement Plan or CIP that specifies the incentives we can offer developers to build more affordable housing across all of Aurora. While it is still in development, our updated CIP could identify surplus municipal lands that could be leased or sold at below market value. We could potentially waive certain planning and development fees as well as have property tax-based incentives. We\u2019re also looking to develop a new online e-permit tool that fast tracks applications that are appropriately zoned and meet a minimum requirement of affordable housing, as well as possibly eliminating the minimum parking requirements for new developments in our MTSA, making it cheaper to build.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also potentially on the horizon is \u201cfiscal firepower\u201d from the upper levels of government to make this happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe most certainly don\u2019t want to burden our residents and our businesses with tax increases,\u201d said Mayor Mrakas. \u201cThat is why we need support from both the Federal and Provincial governments. I am confident we will soon be tapping into that $1.2 billion Provincial Building Faster Fund and what\u2019s perhaps most exciting is the Federal government\u2019s new Housing Accelerator fund. Tapping into this funding will be key for us to deliver many of the programs that will result in more affordable housing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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