An “out of the box” idea to help create affordable housing units will be going ahead in Bradford West Gwillimbury.
Town council approved a temporary zoning bylaw amendment at its Sept. 20 meeting to allow refurbished and winterized trailers to act as housing on the property of Bradford Community Church. Development charges for the project, worth more than $100,000 will be deferred and fees associated with the application, totalling $18,500, will be waived.
Initially, two trailers will be allowed to be occupied at the church, located at the corner of Line 9 and County Road 4, an amendment to the recommended motion which would have allowed four for the entire three-year duration of the temporary zoning bylaw. If no issues present themselves, an additional two trailers can be added to the property by an amendment to the site plan agreement, at the discretion of the mayor and the chief administrative officer.
Despite the town’s desire to improve access to affordable housing for its residents, the application from WOW Living wasn’t rubber-stamped.
The discussion held during the council meeting mirrored that of the statutory public meeting on the matter on July 19, where councillors not only heard from Jodi Greenstreet of WOW Living in defence of the project but also from residents of nearby Grandview Crescent, 14 of whom signed onto a letter shared with councillors voicing their displeasure with the location proposed.
During open forum at the Sept. 20 meeting, six different speakers took an opportunity to share their views on the proposal, including long-time volunteer Ruth Brooks, who used her nearly 25-year involvement in housing issues to defend the need for the trailers and the good they can accomplish for the area’s homeless, and Jennifer Caietta who spoke on behalf of several Grandview residents in opposition.
Caietta took issue with the public meeting on the matter being held virtually and during council’s typical summer break. She thought that the issue should be deferred for council to receive additional information on the legality of the application and so that the planning process could be more “fair and transparent.”
The Grandview residents didn’t question the desire of WOW Living to provide assistance for those in need of housing, Caietta said, adding that if the project was funded on passion alone, it would be a “slam dunk,” but they were concerned about its viability from both a financial and volunteer aspect.
Caietta’s points from open forum were brought up by Coun. Jonathan Scott, the ward councillor for the property. In response to Scott’s questioning, Manager of Community Planning Alan Wiebe also indicated that staff believe the proposed use for the site conforms to the town’s Official Plan.
Opposition around the council table was led by Coun. Gary Lamb who reiterated his commentary from the July public meeting, saying he would “reluctantly vote against” it.
Lamb’s vote was designed to protect the town’s rural areas and its bylaws, likening approving this proposal to letting the genie out of the bottle. He also foresaw potential issues with removing people from the land, as necessary, but Clerk Rebecca Murphy suggested the town will seek “all available methods” to remove the trailers from the land if needed and has methods of charging the church as the landowner to do so, even though it can’t be added to a typical municipal tax bill.
“I’m hoping these things will never pop up all over the place,” Lamb said. “We have a lot of broken up farms and we’ve also got settlements out there… with chunks of lands of maybe five-to-10 acres. How do we make sure that we don’t get pop-up trailer parks if somebody goes and buys 10 old construction trailers and hides them behind the trees and starts renting them?”
Lamb was only joined by Coun. Ron Orr in voting against approving the temporary zoning bylaw. That the proposal is temporary is what appealed to Deputy Mayor James Leduc.
“It’s a temporary zoning bylaw; that’s how we’re going to control (it),” Leduc said. “Homelessness is a big one out there for everybody. We have a lot of homelessness in the county and we have a large waiting list for all our affordable housing…. We need to deal with this problem and if we don’t deal with it, we’ll have tents in our street.”
Coun. Peter Ferragine agreed as council has continuously been asked to support affordable and attainable housing initiatives during the current term.
“We’re trying everything that we can, and we’ve applied for grants and talked to whoever we can,” he said. “This is looking outside the box. We have done pilot projects in the past and we find out whether they work or they don’t.”
Scott also viewed the project as a pilot as much as anything else and wanted to make sure if it was successful, a permanent application wasn’t far behind.
“The temporary zoning application, I would frame as a pilot project to test this out,” Scott said. “Equally, I think that means that three years from now if it works, it has to come in as a permanent application. If the proof of concept is justified, I don’t want to get into the situation where we’re giving extensions on what’s meant to be a temporary measure. I think that would start to be a bit of a farce.”
The vote to defer development charges and waive fees, introduced by Mayor Rob Keffer, was a much closer decision, with a 5-4 margin in the end, with Scott, Lamb, Orr and Ferragine opposed.
Keffer felt the project would be worthy of receiving some funding from the County of Simcoe, as well as some of the money that will make up the town’s affordable housing reserve that will be created with the construction of the Holland Haus project.
“It’s something good for our municipality to be able to try out and be able to help people in our community,” Keffer said.
The mayor also lauded the property owner for their role in seeing the project come to fruition.
“I’d really like to thank the Bradford Community Church for stepping up because they have 1.29 hectares and a lot of it is underutilized,” Keffer said. “I feel they are the ones that are taking the risk as far as their church property.”
