People with an interest in the local housing market gathered at the Stratford Country Club Tuesday for a jointly hosted symposium on the urgent need for new housing solutions and many came away saying the same thing: the problem has been identified, and now it’s time to identify solutions.
Cohosted by investStratford and the Stratford Perth Community Foundation, guests were treated to a pair of panels – How to Build it with guest speakers Christopher Valeri (Mississauga planning and building official), Rino Bortolin (advisor and project manager for the University of Windsor’s Housing Innovation Lab) and Len Overbeek (Tilt Wall Ontario); they then were presented How to Fund it in the second session, hearing from speakers Kyle Zhang (Tapestry Capital), Gurveer Birk (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation) and Krystal Valencia (Rental Rescue).
Over the course of the day, a lot of ideas were presented and conversations were had. Joani Gerber of investStratford said her primary take-away included a little something of everything.
“I think there are properties in Stratford that could benefit from the CMHC, and Rino’s presentation on program innovation and his experience as a city councillor, in the private sector and then as an academic,” she said. “He talked about how we can change the narrative around projects and how we think about density. One of the comments he made was you cannot go six storeys but if you don’t, your taxes will go up. So, you have to be willing to put your name on that. When we’re talking about how we move forward, we understand where everybody’s at and can really engage the public in a way that’s not just about them being heard but about really engaging and them telling us what you think you would do in order to create solutions.”
Gerber said that the problem has already been well identified but it’s the solutions that are coming up in short supply. She said there needs to be a more creative conversation around things like planning and zoning, which would begin to weed out sound ideas from just a lot of talk.
“We need community buy-in, for sure, and I know Stratford and Perth County are going through their official plan reviews, so I think being very bold in some of the things we’re looking at where that is concerned is critical,” she said. “Upzoning or pre-zoning areas within the community where you can do higher density or four units – those are tactical opportunities right now, and I would encourage as many people as possible to come forward to council and say yes as opposed to no. It’s okay to have some objections, but what are the opportunities as well? Hopefully this helps change the dialogue.”
Councillor Larry McCabe said he was interested to see the breadth of solutions being developed, and expressed his appreciation for community bonds.
“I think Stratford is, in general, a pretty generous community and I think if people had an opportunity to invest in solving the housing issues here, you would see a lot of participation,” he said. “I’m interested in seeing more of what Kyle (Zhang) and Tapestry presented here so I know I’d like to follow up with him. But having conversations about this difficult problem is going to take multiple actors working together to solve.”
McCabe said the city’s official plan review is going to be important in identifying solutions in this area and he’s hoping that he and his fellow council members will see some of them integrated into their future plans. There are tough choices ahead, and McCabe hopes this gets the debate going to the point of action.
“I know that Kathy Vassilakos mentioned that successful countries that look for non-market housing get about 12-17 per cent from non-market housing,” he said. “We have 3.5 per cent of that market in Canada, mostly because of when Paul Martin stopped funding social housing. We’re seeing what happens when the government steps back from that because of governance issues, and municipal politicians are the ones who face the crowd that’s angry and don’t want to change. There’s going to have to be a lot of bravery shown or we’re never going to solve this problem, and I think it starts with the official plan. We have to engage people around their fears and make sure they understand that the person who works in the coffee shop needs a place to live. If you want all these services, we can’t provide it without providing sustainable housing for the population … it’s just going to take some bravery and some guts to make this happen.”
Vassilakos partially echoed McCabe’s sentiment, saying that elected officials are going to need to prepare themselves for the pushback that will be coming from people who want this to happen but just not in their backyard.
“They’re going to have to come prepared to take the position that we need this and that it’s good for the community, both now and in the long run,” she said. “And we’re going to have to say yes, even if we have angry people in the room. There were a lot of ideas being thrown here, and the ideas from Rental Rescue caught my attention. It’s a fairly new concept and I told Krystal that I wanted to talk more.”
Already familiar with this landscape due to her work with the United Way’s United Housing project, Vassilakos thinks the biggest thing people can do – whether they’re politicians or just the general public – is keep their mind open to possibilities.
“With an open mind, you start a conversation,” she said. “Let’s invite people in and talk about ideas, and let’s not be afraid to tell people that we want their opinion but there are some non-negotiable things right here as well. This is what (the idea) looks like and this is what we need to build, but we’re going to ask your opinion … it won’t be a unicorn plan where everybody’s needs are met and nobody is impacted whatsoever.”
Gerber said the conversation is not always going to be comfortable, but it needs to be productive.
“There may be more sessions like this as a result of today, and I think that’s great if we keep coming up with ideas that lead to solutions,” she said.
