Newmarket Mayor John Taylor welcomes your questions, to which he will personally write the responses in this candid monthly column. Send your questions to [email protected].
Q: Are there new developments and construction of “rent-geared-to-income” housing in Newmarket/Aurora? How about the RGI in other buildings? How many units are available today? Housing is becoming unaffordable for people with limited incomes, even the ones with not-so-limited earnings.
— Magda de Paiva
A: Housing affordability is one of the greatest challenges facing our Town and our Region.
In York Region from 2007 to 2017, the average re-sale house price rose by a whopping 154 per cent; during that same time, the average family income only rose by 14 per cent. These numbers make it clear why we have a serious challenge on our hands.
The average cost of a new single detached home in York Region is $1.25 million. Add to that the fact we provide about 200 new subsidized housing units every two to three years in York Region, with a wait list now numbering around 16,000 applicants.
We cannot afford to build our way out of this — but, of course, we must continue to build. So what is the answer?
First, we must recognize that providing affordable housing means providing housing options all along the housing spectrum, including shelter spaces, subsidized spaces, basement apartments, rental units, condos, townhomes and, yes, single family homes.
We need to provide housing options to meet the needs of all of our various residents at their affordability points. Also, given the statistics above, we must recognize that the demand for purpose-built rental units will continue to grow rapidly as many more people simply cannot afford to own a home and we must have a strategy to attract rental development. Take 212 Davis, the new 15-storey rental building that opened more than a year ago. It is the first large rental building built in York Region in over 25 years.
We, in Newmarket, created incentives and attracted a developer and, as a result, we were able to secure 25 per cent of the units as subsidized for Housing York.
We need to ask the development industry to innovate and create new types of seniors affordable housing (search ‘Stillbrook Seniors Housing’ online) and to consider building basement apartments, Habitat for Humanity homes and even tiny homes.
Housing affordability is a significant challenge and we must advance new ways of meeting the needs of our community or risk becoming unsustainable in the future.
Newmarket has more rent-geared-to-income units on a per-capita basis than any other municipality in York Region, but we must do more and we need our federal and provincial partners to assist us in our efforts.
