{"id":35011,"date":"2024-09-05T16:22:52","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T20:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=35011"},"modified":"2024-09-12T17:28:03","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T21:28:03","slug":"public-open-house-on-affordable-housing-action-plan-set-for-september-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/public-open-house-on-affordable-housing-action-plan-set-for-september-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Public open house on Affordable Housing Action Plan set for September 9"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Members of the public will soon have a chance to weigh in on Aurora\u2019s draft Affordable Housing Action Plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A public open house on the draft plan will be held Monday, September 9, from 6 \u2013 8 p.m. at Town Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First presented to Council this spring, lawmakers gave their tentative approval to the draft at the end of June with the assurance that public engagement would take place this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan is intended to serve as a \u201cblueprint\u201d to foster affordable housing options within the community through 2051, a time that\u2019s expected to see significant population growth within Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan is guided by six key objectives: increase housing supply, promote housing affordability and stability, ensure complete community growth, streamline approvals, enhance partnerships, and \u201ccontinually monitor, assess and educate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the recommendations in the draft plan to boost housing supply is to permit four units per residential lot to \u201cincrease \u2018missing middle\u2019 and rental opportunities\u201d; increase density \u201cincrementally\u201d within the downtown Aurora Promenade area and the MTSA; undertake a study to look at opportunities to convert land designated for commercial and employment uses; looking at housing opportunities at \u201ckey sites,\u201d with 50-100 Bloomington Road West held up as just one example; and update zoning provisions to support housing creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the objective of Promote Housing Affordability and Sustainability, the Town will, should the Plan be implemented, develop an Affordable Housing Reserve Fund, funded through Community Benefit Charges or developers\u2019 contributions, to allow the Town to \u201cassist with affordable housing projects\u201d such as non-profit and co-op models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional goals here include requiring affordable housing assessments for all new residential developments; implementing inclusionary zoning for the MTSA; prioritizing government-owned land for housing use; and exploring the \u201cbenefits and feasibility\u201d of modular and prefab construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To ensure \u201cComplete Community Growth,\u201d the draft plan suggests eliminating minimum parking requirements within the MTSA to lower housing costs; creating an Affordable Housing Community Improvement Plan, which would arm a municipality with tools to direct funds to \u201cincentivize\u201d the creation of affordable housing through grants, loans and tax breaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Streamlining the approval of developments is a key pillar in the plan. Recommendations here include a Community Planning Permit System that would allow multiple application processes to be consolidated into a single review; continuing to enhance the Town\u2019s online planning application system; prioritizing the approval of affordable housing developments; and waiving application fees for \u201ccritical housing opportunities,\u201d including emergency, transitional and supportive housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Council tentatively approved the draft, it didn\u2019t spend the summer sitting on the shelf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stakeholders, including the grassroots organization Aurora Cares \u2013 Housing for All, have met with staff to share their views on whether the plan meets the mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurora Cares was founded by a group of residents concerned over Council\u2019s rejection of a planned men\u2019s transitional and emergency housing development in Aurora\u2019s south end. While they\u2019re still advocating for transitional housing at the originally proposed site, they have expanded their scope to all forms of housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They say that a full \u201ccontinuum\u201d of housing ranges from \u201ctransitional housing, social housing, affordable rental, and all the way up to market homeownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiven the short amount of time staff had they did a pretty good job on the plan,\u201d says Aurora Cares member Len Bulmer, stating the plan is \u201crather light on the first parts of the continuum\u201d, including shelter and transitional housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe plan talks about the median household income in Aurora for a certain segment of the population is something like $135,000 in the last census, which is information [that\u2019s] more than four years old,\u201d he said. \u201cWe pointed out to them in the same census that the median income for tenants in Aurora, which is a growing population of people, was not $135,000 but $51,600.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another concern offered by the Aurora Cares team was costing in how to make the goals of the plan a reality. Partners at different levels of government and from the community itself need to come on board to realize change, they added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is only so much resource availability to throw at this thing. It\u2019s going to take a lot of money and resources in order to affect that plan. We said to go to the average household income in Aurora sort of hides the fact that that\u2019s maybe not where the need is,\u201d says Bulmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we were saying to [staff] is there has got to be a lot of resources thrown at this to meet the plan. The Town can\u2019t do it by itself. We suggested to them that perhaps they use the plan as an information and leverage document with the Region, the Province and the Feds to say we\u2019re doing a lot of good things in this plan to facilitate affordable housing \u2013 and they are; local municipalities are limited to in their toolbox. In order to make that plan really happen, we suggested to them the Town will have to say, \u2018we\u2019re going to do our part to the extent we can by looking at processes and zoning and what have you, which are all really important things, but if we\u2019re willing to do that, we\u2019re asking the three other levels of government to come into partnership with us with\u2026 much bigger, more impactful tools that you have to make this plan go as far as it can.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey can\u2019t do it by themselves and to the extent they can raise a few boatfulls of money from people, who are you aiming this plan at? The housed? The well-housed? The over-housed? Those who need shelter, transitional programs and services and programming, tenant populations and other subgroups within the community that are really most in need of shelter and housing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Members of the public will soon have a chance to weigh in on Aurora\u2019s draft Affordable Housing Action Plan. A public open house on the draft plan will be held Monday, September 9, from 6 \u2013 8 p.m. at Town Hall. First presented to Council this spring, lawmakers gave their tentative approval to the draft […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-96H","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-14 13:32:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}