By Cecilia Nasmith

Cobourg is making some good moves in attacking the affordable-housing crunch, council heard Monday.

The compliment came during a presentation on the Cobourg Affordable Housing Strategy that was carried out by Northumberland County in a process that included both a county-wide strategy and one for each member municipality.

Consultant Christine Pacini said the primary goal of the exercise was to find ways to increase the supply of affordable and market-rental housing through a range of tools and incentives.

The accepted definition of affordable housing is shelter that costs no more than 30% of a household's income. By standards that existed at the end of 2018, this means a monthly cost of no more than $1,019 in monthly rental and no more than a $316,190 home-purchase price.

They identified two major gaps for Cobourg, Pacini said.

One is to increase affordable rental housing options. While the town has 285 rent-geared-to-income units, 23 rent-supplement units and 47 invest-in-affordable-housing units, the waiting lists for these can be as long as nine years. Meanwhile, more than 10% of Cobourg residents pay more than 50% of their monthly income for housing.

The other is the need for support-services options in housing to facilitate aging in place. This is especially vital in Cobourg, where 42% of the households are headed by someone aged 65 or older – a number that rose by almost 39% between 2006 and 2016.

A net gain of 38 affordable units is about what is needed, Pacini said, and offering incentives to encourage the creation of affordable housing is a good strategy. These could take the form of donating land for designated projects, waiving development fees or property-tax exemptions that can make fiscal room for the developer to lower some of the rents.

This has been done in Cobourg in the case of certain projects, like the Habitat For Humanity expansion of an existing home on University Avenue West.

Later on the agenda that same evening, council also voted to grant a two-year deferral on applicable building-permit, planning-application and tree-and-parkland fees on a four-storey 71-unit apartment building at William Street and University Avenue West – a concession worth $189,775.

The county is also moving on the issue, Northumberland County Community and Social Services Housing Services Manager Rebecca Carman said, recently adding a development on Ontario Street to supplement the county's affordable-housing stock, and pursuing plans for replacing 18 semi-detached homes on Elgin Street with a development that features 40 units.

Pacini had touched on short-term rentals, which prompted Councillor Emily Chorley to ask if she had Airbnb in mind when she said that.

“I think we are on the cusp of that,” Pacini said.

“We don't really quite know the impact locally, but we know it exists. We have heard anecdotally – we know they are out there and having an impact.”

It is up to municipalities to pass regulations, Carman said, and this was just done last week in Toronto. They will now have the authority to license the practice, identifying units that might be used for this purpose and putting measures in place to ensure it does not go on long-term.