Minden Hills mayor Bob Carter is on the board of Habitat for Humanity Peterborough and Kawartha Region, and also sits on the board of Kawartha Lakes Haliburton Housing Corporation.
The housing advocate will be attending the Oct. 24 housing summit in Minden.
Updating The Highlander on some initiatives to date, he said the County is looking into communal servicing for water and septic.
Following County of Frontenac director of economic development and planning Joe Gallivan’s delegation to County council in September 2023, Carter said the upper-tier government has been looking into communal servicing with director of economic development and tourism, Scott Ovell, working behind the scenes.
“I think in the next couple of months, you’ll see it. There’s lots of legal issues setting it [a municipal services corporation to oversee communal servicing] up, towns have to own it, but we’ve been doing the research at the County so we’re very much going to do that.”
Carter said Ovell had been following along with Frontenac County and the issues they’ve had getting the Frontenac MSC set up.
“We want to make sure it’s set up once, and good,” Carter said.
As for housing strides being made in the Town of Collingwood, Carter said he believes one problem in Haliburton County and Minden Hills is they have no strategic plan.
“We really need to decide what we want to be when we grow up, like how much growth we want to have, where we want to have growth and so on.”
He conceded housing has been the most frustrating portfolio since he has become a local politician, now into his sixth year.
“The only way you’re going to be able to get anything supportable is through densification. You’ve got to be building up. People aren’t necessarily going to want that, but we don’t really have much of a choice.”
He said Collingwood has more available land, and a much larger tax base.
In the Highlands, he said, “we’ve got all sorts of projects that people are planning, and have talked to us about, we’ve done pre-consultations, but bringing it to fruition is really difficult. There’s no money coming from the government.”
Speaking to the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus 7-in-7 initiative, he said another problem is having shovel-ready projects ready when the government advertises funding with short notice.
The EOWC’s 7-in-7 regional housing plan proposes building at least 7,000 community rental units over seven years across the region to address wait lists. Using a mixed-model approach, the 7-in-7 plan was designed to bring on nearly 21,000 additional market rate units. This would total 28,000 housing units.
The plan requires partnering with the federal and provincial government, as well as the private and non-profit sectors, and Indigenous partners.
Carter said he and fellow Habitat and KLH Housing board member Fay Martin plan to meet with the Frontenac and Collingwood staffers after the summit.
“They’re (Collingwood) looking at lots in a city you can put a house on, in ones and twos, but I’m more interested in 30-40-50s.” He said he’s been told by some people that 100 houses wouldn’t sell but “the numbers are huge in what you can potentially sell. Having some on the market would make it easier for employers to recruit.”
He noted Habitat for Humanity is working on three or four projects in the County, including the Wee Care property in Haliburton. They take time, with environment assessments and geotechnical work.
“There’s lots going on… but even after you go through that, you have to bring it to fruition by hopefully having enough money.”
