The Municipality of Meaford is looking into establishing an Affordable Housing Advisory Committee.
Municipal Clerk, Matt Smith, says the municipality is currently just exploring the possibility of creating a committee, but affordable housing issues, like seemingly everywhere else in Canada, are present in Meaford. Right now, they aren't sure of the extent, but Smith says that's what the eventual committee may discover, but right now, it's hard to gauge.
"It's a little hard for us to tell, because we don't keep detailed information on things like rental units and so on, but the general perception is that there is a really limited rental market in the municipality, and the rents are going up significantly, as have housing prices over the last number of years."
So now, Smith says staff will start to investigate what an Affordable Housing Advisory Committee might do from a municipal standpoint to aid people in the future.
"What is there that we can do as a municipality or as a group of municipalities, or as a whole county, to sort of help with that? There's lots of different ways that municipalities can get involved, but they all sort of come with their own complications."
Smith notes that one thing that Meaford staff will explore is potentially setting aside 1 percent of the annual tax budget revenue to aid the future committee in tackling housing issues. However, Smith adds that 1 percent of Meaford's current tax revenue works out to about $160,000, which would limit large-scale impacts.
"So if that was the budget per year, it's very unlikely, I would say, that we'd be building any units, because you wouldn't be able to build many units for that on an annual basis. So it would be more likely trying things like trying to encourage development or working with local partners."
Given that a municipal election is only 4 months off, Smith says council didn't want to try and firmly establish any new committee but did want staff to begin investigating its future existence.
"I think council felt that creating a new committee at this stage probably isn't in anybody's best interest. So, any decision on this would happen after the election, as would any decision on allocating any money from the budget."