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| This building is under construction at 1550 Venetian Boulevard, Pt. Edward, Ontario. |
Louis Shalako
Approvals are Nothing. Shovels in the Ground Are
Everything.
Locally, approvals for housing developments of all
kinds add up to either 2,400, or even 3,500, depending on who you ask, or maybe
just in how we choose to define them. Yet there are very few shovels in the
ground. Some of the approvals go back so many years, they have been forgotten.
So, how many affordable, geared-to-income units has
the County of Lambton built in the last twelve months? Three, ladies and
gentlemen…just three. Habitat for Humanity is doing a better job than that,
although mere charity can never be a solution for low-cost housing. It doesn’t
even work that well for poverty…
The former Bayside Mall was successfully demolished,
and a new building put up for Shared Services and the Ministry of Community and
Social Services. Driving by, at some point, one began to wonder at the lack of
progress. The Covid-19 pandemic put a hold on a lot of projects. But this one
never started up again. No further work has been done, and an announcement has
been made that the whole thing is off, whether that is temporary or permanent
is a good question. It’s a big, flat area in the middle of downtown, and
nothing is happening there.
Affordable, Geared-to-Income Indigenous Housing at 940
Confederation St. has been delayed due to unexpectedly high construction costs.
(40 units)
St. Demetrios Church on Murphy Road has hit a roadblock due to funding program changes. (Up to 46 units)
Former Devine St. School to become senior’s housing.(100 units)
An elected official has stated that there was a change
in ownership. Whether that means the land or the company have been sold, or
whether one or more partners walked away, is unclear.
Former St. Peter’s School to become senior’s housing.(104 units)
Former High Park Church to become affordable housing. (20-23 units)
Housing eyed for former St. Paul’s Church in Sarnia.
(Unknown number of units)
Developer has plans for the historic Central United Church. (10-15 accessible units)
Out of the Cold Program to utilize Laurel Lea Church
on Exmouth Street. This is a winter-seasonal homeless shelter, with a possible plan for further affordable housing.
So, Kathleen St. has been proposed as the site of some
new development for affordable housing. The city owns the land—unfortunately,
the county is in charge of social housing, which means that it won’t get built
anytime soon, no matter how much fair, impartial and objective news coverage it
appears to receive. (50 units)
The city has or is giving away an underused parking
lot on Victoria Street, again, the county will be responsible for actually building it. I have a funny feeling that one ain’t going to happen anytime
soon. Mayor Mike Bradley, seconded by Councilor Bill Dennis, both members of
county council entered a motion challenging Lambton County Social Services to
complete any project within eighteen
months. This may relate to the council’s response to a request for a study of
putting washrooms at Rainbow Park. (See below.)
The county’s project, Maxwell Place, has some serious problems. The project, affordable, geared-to-income housing for vulnerable
senior citizens is stalled for the second time. Holes were excavated,
foundation work was done. One day all the contractors went home and nothing has
been done since. Apparently, the county is looking for a contractor willing and
able to complete the project. Which won’t happen as long as litigation is
before the courts. Also, people aren’t talking, this is especially true with
the possibility or likelihood of litigation before the courts. Another fine
mess, whether that has anything to do with the prefab construction methods or what
is unknown, however the upper structural modules are said to be in storage
locally… (24 units)
So county council, in what appears to be a
misinterpretation, refused to put in ‘washrooms’ at the Rainbow Park homeless
encampment, when really, portable johns would appear to be desirable as an interim measure. According to Mr. Agar, ‘a city park and a city homeless
encampment is a city problem’, I might have had a little more sympathy if the
county could actually complete a project of almost any sort, in any sort of
time frame, and at almost any sort of cost—
When county council voted pretty much unanimously to
fund a five-year study on homelessness and affordable housing shortly after the
2018 election, that was a dead giveaway. And, of course, they can’t do anything
until the study is completed, which it was. And it was the most wishy-washy,
most waffling sort of document that has been seen in many years around here,
with plenty of talk about leveraging synergies and shifting paradigms, and
identifying core areas of need, assessing individual requirements and designing
one-size-fits-all living spaces, (unless there's something different about you), and partnerships, and stakeholders, and
consultations—they can never get enough consultations with stakeholders, ladies
and gentlemen. Oddly enough, the only stakeholders not invited are the ones who
are actually supposed to live in these places, assuming they ever get one built.
In that sense, it’s like the ‘consultations’ undertaken before the legalization
of recreational cannabis: the only people who never got to speak were the very
people who were supposedly to benefit from said legalization. I may be
exaggerating slightly, but I think not—
There are some success stories.
Bayfront is one of a small number of local success stories. It can hardly be described as affordable, even so, it does tend to
take the pressure off of other apartments and condominiums in the local area.
Presumably, the tenants/lessees aren’t all that interested in home ownership per se, and here, at least on the river
side, you have views of the water. Clearly, the tenants can afford to pay the rent.
The Addison is a newly built apartment tower, the
property once housed what used to be a grocery store and a department store. It
is ‘relatively affordable’, yet no one on disability or welfare could afford
even a one-bedroom, even if they had a partner, bearing in mind clients of ODSP
lose all or a portion of their ‘shelter portion’, if they attempt to share
housing costs. I told the Ministry that this tended to cause homelessness many,
many years ago. (They don't care. - ed.) This sort of thing is ‘baked in’ to the legislation. The social
workers can’t do much about that, and for governments, Liberal or Conservative,
it seems to create some sort of mental block. The result, is that they might
study it endlessly, but no one has the guts to take that one big step, which would
result in a total, ground-up, nuts and bolts revision of the guidelines. The
real problem, is that it costs money, the government is responsible to the
taxpayers, and the NIMBYs and nay-sayers are all over the place. They’re down
on the riverbank, burning a candle in order to raise awareness of the stigma…etc, etc, etc, and getting some good
front-page coverage while doing it.
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| Looking southeast, London Rd. and Christina St. |
The former Sarnia General Hospital Site sat empty and
derelict for some years after closure. Homeless people and others were breaking
into the site and stealing copper wire, piping, anything that they could turn
into a dollar. It was a nightmare for the neighbours, police and the city. The
city eventually paid to have it taken down, turned it over to private
enterprise, and at least there is semi-detached housing along Elgin Street, and
a pair of low-rise towers are presently under construction. They have
progressed to the point of brickwork on the exterior, doors and windows are in,
one would assume interior finishing work is progressing. What the actual rent scale
will be is unknown. The city paid $5.4 million for demolition and the
developers paid $1,000.00 for a property estimated at a value of $1.4 million.
One hell of an incentive, but maybe that’s what it takes these days.
A development of approximately 154 detached homes is
slated for a parcel of land along London Line. A model home appears to have
been built. Yet high-end or luxury housing is not going to solve the problem of
affordability in this town, this county, or anywhere else in this country. This
end of the market really does rely on market forces, rather than any great
subsidies from multiple levels of government. This market exists—and the
customer can afford to pay the mortgage.
Here’s the County’s own Report Card, in which they give themselves all A’s.
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| Looking northeast from the same intersection. Churches make bad housing, except for God. |
There is a supportive housing thing on London Road. In
a recent news story, there were only a small number of at-risk youth in
residence. The folks that built it had $1.2 million of their own money to contribute. The money came to some extent from their success with Emergency 401 or something like that.
Here is a proposed combined detached/townhouse development in Petrolia, which seems logical enough as it relies on market
conditions and customer demand. It requires some rezoning, which will quickly
be granted. This story was published June 6/24. Yet, even if it happens, it
does take some time for ‘shovels in the ground’ and the project to come to
fruition.
Point Edward Apartment Takes Shape Quickly.
Brush Cleared for Housing in Point Edward.
Former Holmes Foundry Lands Planned for Development.16 Acres in Total.
Poor people study the sports pages. Rich people study
the interest rates. The Bank of Canada has just lowered the rate from 5 % to
4.75 %. There are institutional lenders, then there are institutional
borrowers. OPM, ‘other people’s money’, a bit of a mantra among entrepreneurs. As
my grandfather would have said, don’t bet
the farm on it. Very few corporations have a couple of hundred million
laying around, just waiting to be thrown at a housing development. This is not
like the stock market, where you can make multiple trades a day, totalling in
the millions, and perhaps make a quick profit—or a quick loss. There is a time
lag. Nothing happens quickly in this industry, and sometimes nothing ever
happens at all, even with ‘approvals’. The bigger the project, the longer the time lag. A new
development takes time to build, it takes time to sell it out and fill it up,
and it takes time to recoup that investment. The real professionals are looking
at the ‘split’, how much does it cost to borrow, interest paid, and how long
does it take to pay it off—and how long does it take before the development
produces a profit for the shareholders. The split is between income and outgo—a word I may have just invented.
When the conditions are right, building and
development will begin anew. Until then, not much joy.
Time for analysis. This is where we compare apples,
oranges—and green bananas, which as we are all aware, go bad fairly quickly…
First the commonalities. The successful projects were
private ventures. Some of the unsuccessful ones were also private ventures. In
an assumption, the successful projects had funding secured, arguably, before
the pandemic, and before the interest rates started really climbing. Inflation
played some role, bearing in mind the Bank of Canada rate was raised from a
nominal .25 % up to 5 %, all of which happened in a very short time. However,
if you and your bank had signed a contract, and approved your funding at a
given rate, the bank will honour that contract unless it is time-limited. Use
it or lose it, in other words.
Some, but not all of the unsuccessful projects may not
have had their funding secured. They may not have had funding at all, relying
on government grants and low or zero-interest loans. Some of those programs
were also time-limited. Any government program has only so much funding. It is
first come, first served with some of these programs.
Some of the ‘unsuccessful’ projects may not have been
the result of serious intention. If you’re trying to interest buyers in your
property, the fact that you have perhaps gotten some variance in the zoning or
other bylaws, the fact that some pie-in-the-sky project has been approved by a
municipal or county council, might carry some weight with potential purchasers.
Some of the even more unsuccessful projects may
represent fantasy more than reality. This especially applies to old churches.
The congregation may no longer be able to support the costs of such a building,
and the mother church may have gone bankrupt.
Yet they hate like hell to see the thing torn down as
well. It’s a perfectly good building and a perfectly good cause, right?
In a previous story, I discussed the difficulty of
converting the classic 1960s elementary school to housing, and the issues sort
of double or triple if the thing is multi-story, for example the old SCITS here
in Sarnia, on Wellington Street. Some folks thought it was a no-brainer for
affordable housing. Assuming relatively low rents as ‘affordable’ any economic
case, not even for profit, just to keep the building going over the longer
term, is unsustainable. Affordable
rents do not cover the costs of an
unaffordable building.
Locally, several of the churches listed above are
huge, very old-fashioned structures. They might even be described as beautiful
in their own way. Some of them are historic, but only the bats and the chimney
swifts really want to live in that big belfry on the end of the building. The
rest of the place represents one big, tall, vast space. That space has no
supporting structure. To divide that up into floors will require that structure
to be put in place. So now, you’re figuring out how to dig foundations deep into
the ground. At the very least, you need to get a backhoe into the building…
The writer is not an engineer, what he does do is to
ask questions—or maybe just run a few thought experiments. The writer spent
much of his life in construction, and structures
are not entirely unfamiliar.
Some very nice people are talking about fundraising.
At the risk of being rude or insulting, you can’t fund such a project within
any sort of time-frame by running bake-sales or charity bingo games.
(Otherwise the Canadian Armed Forces would be doing
it. – ed.)
What they are looking for is public funding, or some rather large donations. Yet the government
is not unsophisticated when assessing such requests. Neither are the large
donors, and not too many people have ten or twelve or more millions laying
around, and if they did, you are really going to have to impress them. You are
really going to have to make a case, a good case, for that particular building.
So far, this has been unsuccessful.
These are the green bananas, going off rather quickly.
There are actually a few shovels in the ground here in
Sarnia-Lambton. The skilled trades, the professional contractors, are the only
people who can make things happen in the sense of construction and renovation,
and they will go where the money is. For the most part, that is private money,
paid by professional developers. Any contracting business runs on money. The
skilled trades do not work on charity. They have their own homes, families and
their own mortgages to feed.
Update: the county has just offered to buy St. Bartholemew Church, which is in the north end of this city. This may be a bit of a revenge ploy on the part of county, as the NIMBYs and naysayers will be freaking out at the thought of poor people moving into the neighbourhood, bringing down property values. This is where that good old stigma rears its very useful head. Essentially, in this scenario the county looks good and the city will be revealed for what it is. This is why they simply must mention mental health and addictions in any news story of poverty, homeless and disability. There will be endless rounds of consultation, site plans, and there is many a slip between the crouch and the leap, as my old sabre instructor used to say...
Also. I mentioned that some of these approvals go back so many years, they have been forgotten. I had forgotten this long-term care development. It doesn't really fit the definition of affordable housing, except that the elderly are people too. This story dates back to May 3, 2021, where the city sold the land for $250,000.00 and the plan is to replace Sumac Lodge. This land is three kilometres from the original site, which is still open. The site had been shut to new admissions, pending health and safety repairs and upgrades. Also, three years have gone by. Driving by on the way to work, the location of this land is sort of difficult to confirm, although there are open areas in between homes and businesses.
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| Louis spells councillor with one 'L', my dears. |
END
Analysis: Turning Federal Buildings into Affordable Housing. Louis Shalako.
Louis has books and stories available from Google Play
in ebook and audiobook formats.
Louis has some art and stuff on Fine Art America.
Note.
Louis spells councillor with one letter ‘L’. Other than that, he really is
quite all right. – ed.
Thank you for reading, and listening.
