Co-operative Housing Association
of Eastern Ontario

Co-ops and Housing Issues in the News!

Allowing homeowners to build apartments in attics or basements will help provide affordable housing in a city where the vacancy rate is among the lowest in Canada—eight per 1,000—according to a report released yesterday.

This was one of the recommendations made to city, provincial and federal governments and the private sector by the Mayor’s Task Force on Public/Private Partnerships for Affordable Housing.

Councillor Alex Munter, who suggested the idea to the committee, said making such units legal would allow them to be inspected.

“They are being created now,” he conceded, “but because they’re illegal, they don’t get inspected and that means there are safety concerns.”

In a letter to the committee, Mr. Munter suggested creating a $500,000 program to build 200 affordable apartments. “At $2,500 per unit, this would, without doubt, be the best bang for the city’s housing buck,” he said.

Following yesterday’s ceremony, the councillor pointed out that current zoning in parts of the city make it difficult or impossible to legally build a basement apartment or second-storey flat.

Shirley Westeinde, chairwoman of the task force, noted there are problems in encouraging such developments—safety and fire, for example—an the “not in my back yard” syndrome.

How do we encourage people to allow secondary suites in our neighbourhood?” she asked at the release of her group’s report.

Other committee recommendations include removing tax and regulatory barriers to rental development and reducing development costs.

Developers are putting up apartment buildings, although not as low-rent levels, Ms. Westeinde said, and as people move into these more expensive units, it should free up some of the more affordable housing, she said.

Since 1995, fewer than 200 rental units have been built each year, where about 1,000 a year are needed, and rents rose by more than 12 per cent in 2000 and another 8 per cent in 2001, the committee reported.