Barrie's mayor faults Affordable Housing report for ignoring solutions and immigration impact

During the January 10 General Committee Meeting at the Barrie City Hall, the council discussed and approved Affordable Housing Strategy for 2024. 

The consulting firm NBLC prepared a fifty-page Affordable Housing Strategy for the city, and staff prepared an additional supplementary report, totaling 180 pages.

However, Mayor Alex Nuttall criticized the report for its lack of simplicity, for ignoring the impact of immigrants and students on housing, and for its lack of solutions to address housing issues.

“It felt like a report that was three years old, or four years old, that didn't incorporate the actual conversation that we're trying to have, which is what we do going forward,” he said. 

The Mayor asked the city's Director of Development Services Michelle Banfield, whether the consultant and staff had discussed the impact of immigration on housing. 

Banfield, paraphrasing the consultant, stated, "there's no point in evaluating more and more about immigration policy. Immigration is happening. There was a little bit of a discussion about where people are coming from (to Barrie)."

Banfield mentioned that Georgian College is carrying out a study to assess the impact of the student population on housing in Barrie.

Approximately half of the students are international, and Indian students constitute a major portion of that number. Nuttall said “does the origin of the person moving to Barrie who's in need of affordable units affect the built form on the back end in terms of the demand going forward? Or can we look at it as everybody is the same? And maybe the answer is everybody's got the same, exact same expectations, hopes and dreams? And so it doesn't matter. But for me, that's a question that I would would have loved to see and answered in here.”

Ward 1 Councillor Clare Riepma highlighted from the report that only 350 net new units have been added to Barrie’s rental supply in the past 20 years, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). He also noted over 5,000 renter households live in unaffordable and/or unsuitable housing. Riepma also suggested that Georgian College should build student housing.

Ward 8 Councillor Jim Harris commented on the homelessness issue among students arriving in Canada. Ward 4 Councillor Amy Courser expressed concerns about the lack of discussion on stopping investors from buying land or units for renting out.