The Regional Municipality of York is set to save $219 million due to changes in community housing, but there is some debate on how to best spend the windfall on housing.
York Region’s housing services is preparing to renegotiate mortgage agreements with its community housing providers, representing 4,319 total units, with the region’s Housing York owning 1,025 units. With provincial regulatory changes in 2022, the region is estimating approximately $531 million in over 20 years in mortgage savings, but that is reduced to $219 million when factoring in capital repair costs. Regional council discussed a report on the matter May 9.
About 60 per cent of the savings are expected to be used to address a capital repair backlog, but Newmarket Mayor John Taylor said more of those dollars should be focused on new builds rather than capital repair.
“We’re being belts and suspenders on capital repairs when we’re in a housing crisis,” Taylor said. “We should be moving new units forward.”
The region is grappling with $90 million in housing repairs needed for various community housing providers. The region expects costs to increase with construction prices going up, prompting staff to estimate that putting only 40 per cent of the mortgage savings -— endorsed in principle by council in 2020 — would not be enough.
“Providers’ costs continue to increase due to factors such as inflation, supply chain challenges, as well as the age of the buildings,” the staff report said.
Regardless of the split, after capital costs, the region expects to be putting millions back into the housing system. But Taylor suggested that the split should be closer to 50-50 between capital repairs and new projects.
“We shouldn’t have to take as much from what was the 60 per cent that was to go to new builds, which we desperately need to move forward and accelerate,” Taylor said.
Housing services manager Karen Antonio-Hadcock said it is something staff could look at, but they do have needs to fulfill and it is legislatively mandated,
“It is a requirement of ours to be able to fund the capital repair needs of our providers,” she said.
Council agreed to refer the matter to a future council meeting, with a memo expanding on the financial picture and Taylor’s concerns.