It's been six months since Midland council launched its task force on affordable housing.
The group has now come forward with a plan, which they presented to council at its recent meeting, along with an update on how things have progressed so far.
"We've taken those two properties to architects asking them what can be done with the lands," said Gord McKay, former Midland mayor and chair of Council's Task Force on Affordable Housing, talking about the properties on 415 William St. and 260 Midland Ave.
"We're going to go through this and develop a lot of learning and we must come back to council and the public with that."
The results of the requests for proposals will soon be tallied and decided on, he said.
Then McKay handed over the reigns to Dan Lebrecque, who was brought on as a consultant to help prepare a business case.
"The task force came to the conclusion that there is no one-size-fits-all solution," he said. "The task force is recommending the town focus its efforts on attainable housing. Residents in this group find themselves not qualified to access social housing but also can't find appropriate housing in the free market without making a number of tough decisions."
The RFP, added Lebrecque, will set up the town to refine its strategy and find a long-term and sustainable plan.
Families that are income-challenged find it exceedingly difficult to access affordable housing, as market forces continue to drive both rental and home ownership costs further away from what is deemed affordable, he said, adding over 1,200 Midland households are deemed at some form of risk for housing, primarily because of their financial status.
Coun. Bill Gordon, who said he was on side with the mission, asked about a parcel of land the town recently purchased.
"Where does the beautiful greenfield on Balm Beach Road play into this?" he said.
McKay said the committee started out essentially with the full list of town-owned properties.
"We looked at which ones would attract most interest from developers," he said. "With that, we did some preliminary work and short-listed three and looked at two that would take the interest forward. The Balm Beach property was talked about at a number of meetings, but it was another scale and position we felt would get interest from the community."
Coun. Jon Main said affordable housing issues cannot be solved in a year or two.
"When we first started, we thought it was a 110-metres hurdle (race); it's probably a 3,000-metre steeplechase combined with the Hunger Games," he said, adding, the town could continue looking at other ways of addressing the issue as well.
"We can identify in our zoning bylaw other areas in town to make it more amenable for people to expand their houses to make secondary units available," said Main. "We're taking a very active role with municipal assets and add housing wherever we can."
The task force will meet next at 2 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 1. A recorded video of the proceedings can be viewed via the town's YouTube channel.
