Mississauga’s housing stock - affordability gap

NRU
May 4, 2016
By Leah Wong

Moderate and low-income households in Mississauga are facing issues with housing affordability as a result of a limited supply of housing types in the city. To improve the availability of options across the housing spectrum the city is studying what combination of policy tools will best incent the development of affordable units.

On Monday planning and development committee considered a staff report assessing the city’s housing gap and outlining policy tools other jurisdictions have used to increase affordable housing supply.

“We have challenges ahead of us, we really do,” Mayor Bonnie Crombie told committee. “Some of the recommendations [in the staff report] will be tough for this council to accept and adopt. But we have to be progressive and do what’s right for our residents, especially those that are in need.”

Mississauga presently lacks the policies needed to address housing affordability. While the city has removed regulatory barriers to secondary suites, there are still barriers in place that effect housing stock.

“There is no easy answer to fixing the affordability problem and it’s going to take time. It cannot be changed overnight,” city planning director Andrew Whittemore told committee.

City staff says that the issue of housing affordability needs to be considered from perspectives of income and supply and suggests the city focus its eff ort on addressing the supply gap. The income gap is better addressed by more senior levels of government.

Housing affordability is a widespread issue in Mississauga as almost one-in-three households spends more than 30 per cent of its income on housing. And renters in Mississauga face greater affordability issues-about 42.5 per cent spend more than a third of household income on housing costs and 20.4 per cent spend at least half of household income.

The city has a low vacancy rate (1.6 per cent) with a higher availability of bachelor units than units with three or more bedrooms. And there is limited rental stock being built in the city-only 57 new rental units were built in 2015 while around 75 rental units are converted to condominiums each year.

City staff prepared a jurisdictional review of the policy tools used by other municipalities-such as Toronto, Edmonton and Seattle-to improve their range of housing stock and address affordability issues. The report highlights 30 tools grouped in five categories: direct service delivery, municipal regulatory and procedural tools, enabling legislation for municipal incentives, land-based incentives and financial incentives.

Examples of municipal regulatory and procedural tools include fast-tracking the development approval process, density bonusing and introducing a development permit system. Land-based incentives include providing municipal land at a reduced cost and adopting large-site policies. Financial incentives include waiving municipal planning and building fees, deferring development charges and providing tax-increment equivalent grants.

“While each tool can be implemented individually, it’s anticipated that a combination of different tools would bring about a more significant effect in terms of adding to the supply of affordable housing,” city planner Emily Irvine told committee.

The housing gap assessment and municipal best practices report from planning and building commissioner Ed Sajecki concludes the first phase of the city’s affordable housing program work plan, approved by council in February. Since then the city has formed an advisory panel comprising members of council, city, regional and provincial staff and representatives from the development and non-profit housing sectors Sajecki said that several advisory panel members had suggested developing city-owned lands. While there is limited surplus city lands, there may be surplus provincially, federally or school board owned land. He said there may also be opportunities to intensify around the city’s community centres.

The next steps include city staff undertaking a cost/benefit analysis to determine how effective these tools could be in increasing the supply of affordable housing. Staff will also develop an annual housing target and explore the housing programs and funding available from other levels of government.