Today is the first full day of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Sustainable Communities Conference, held this year in Fredericton, New Brunswick. It’s been a very busy day, and my mind is buzzing with possibilities for Brighton, but I’ll focus on the two main sessions I attended today.
Affordable Housing
This morning I attended a tour of 12 Neighbours, a “dignified micro home community” in Fredericton. Built using a combination of private funds, public funds, donations, and donated labour, 12 Neighbours has 97 tiny homes, each of which cost between $70-80,000 to build, as well as a $3M multi-purpose building that includes community space and several social enterprises such as a coffee shop and a shop space for building projects. The tiny homes are complete houses, not sleeping cabins (like the ones in Peterborough), and are rented out at Rent Geared to Income (RGI) rates — that is, the rent is set to a maximum of 30% of the renter’s income, up to $700/month. Compared to the average cost of a 1-bedroom apartment, that’s quite affordable even at the full amount.
The homes are not transitional housing, which is to say that once someone has been approved to rent one of the homes they are not necessarily under any expectation to move on. Many residents do: after a time of having increased stability in their life simply because they are adequately housed, many residents are able to build a stronger sense of identity and confidence, develop their skills and employability, and eventually able to rent a market-rate unit somewhere else. But they’re not required to move on, and some are eventually able to invest in their home, improving some of the fixtures or renovating for more space.
The homes themselves are built 5km away, with largely donated labour from a local church. The units all have solar panels on them, which provide a surplus of energy in the summer that gets sold back to the grid; they produce much less energy in winter, and this morning most of them were covered in snow.
The community has full wraparound supports, including access to social workers and counselling from a combination of paid and volunteer professionals. There’s overnight security on site, and a camera system, though the community is walking back its security protocols to create a more comfortable community; it does not require around the clock security or surveillance.
The community space in the large building out front has programs such as art classes and guitar lessons, and skill programs aimed at increasing residents’ confidence and employability. Residents are able to work in the cafe/bakery there, and have access to a variety of apprenticeship programs. The personal development of the residents is a top priority: the first principle of the community is that every resident is cherished!
The social enterprises operate on a break-even basis: they exist to employ residents, not to turn a profit. The operation is funded by the rent paid by residents (and subsidized through social services), and also accepts donations as a registered charity.
In Northumberland County we’ve discussed the possibility of having a tiny home community in order to house people who are experiencing homelessness. The challenge is that, although there are many people for whom this kind of living arrangement would be much preferable, the cost of land in Northumberland is high enough that this kind of development at this scale would be extremely expensive there. Northumberland Social Services has looked into it, and determined that they can do more good with their limited resources by investing in apartments. Similarly, having small clusters of tiny homes spread out all over the place would spread staff more thinly, also incurring extra costs.
But the benefit of having one’s own space is hard to overstate. Even though residents at 12 Neighbours are renters, they have a sense of ownership over their unit (each of which also has a small yard) that is much deeper than a typical renter in an apartment unit. Their individual security is higher, and so is their independence. And people who have lived outside for a long time, and aren’t comfortable in a shared space like an apartment building, are reportedly better able to feel secure and welcome in this kind of community. I know of some Northumberland residents who are currently sleeping rough because they don’t feel comfortable in a shelter, or any other space with others in the building.
So if you happen to have a significant amount of land within a reasonable distance of town, and would like to dedicate it to a tiny home community, let me know! Maybe we can replicate some of these successes.
Managing Growth
This afternoon I attended a panel on managing growth, with planning staff from Kitchener Ontario and Moncton New Brunswick, both of which are among the fastest growing municipalities in Canada. Brighton isn’t growing at nearly their pace, and is much smaller besides, but we’re nonetheless feeling the challenges of growth and everything in their talk was relatable.
Kitchener served as a case study of successful community engagement: they’ve won several awards for the ways that they involved residents in planning the future of their city, including a Lived Expertise Working Group that included people experiencing homelessness in determining a homelessness strategy for the city. They also created a card game to help residents young and old understand and participate in planning exercises, seeing how different planning decisions will shape the city.
Moncton’s long-term planner also talked about the challenges of public engagement, not least of which is “public engagement fatigue.” We try so hard, so often, to engage the public in planning decisions, not least because we are required to by the Planning Act; but few people attend these meetings, and it’s often difficult to even get the word out that we’re hosting them. (Sometimes I miss them myself!) The few people who come out also often tire out; we get few survey responses, even on the survey about how to improve our public engagement processes!
They suggested meeting people where they are: host block parties, piggy-back on other municipal events, or create interactive tools people can use online. Imagine if, rather than hosting a special meeting in the community centre, we instead set up an information session about the need for a new multi-use recreational facility just fifty feet away in the lobby of the arena during public skate? How many more people would engage if we had strategic planning sessions at Canada Day, when the whole town is gathered in the park to celebrate our community and country? Holding sessions in locations that are relevant to their content can enhance the quality of the engagement too.
They also discussed the nature of growth itself. While these planners define growth management as planning sustainably, members of the public gave them feedback saying that growth is scary, that it’s how the city tells them how they have to live, that growth is something that happens to them and cannot be controlled or anticipated. Making the concepts of growth and planning more understandable and relatable to the general public therefore helps people feel more empowered and secure in their own community. It’s essential.
Both speakers also commented in various ways about the importance of collecting data and making it accessible to the public. We can only improve what we can measure, and sharing those measurements with residents empowers them to participate in the process–and often, to give us important insights that help us better plan for our common future.
While we’re much smaller than either of these cities, and therefore have far fewer resources, we’re still striving toward improving our processes and data collection. On Monday night council was presented with a report about our public engagement procedures, part of staff’s efforts to improve on those processes and work toward more positive and effective engagement. Sadly I missed the meeting; I was changing planes in Montreal when the meeting started, on my way here to the conference. But that report, combined with what I learned today, gives me a lot to think about as we work toward a new policy!
I’m sure I’ll learn just as much tomorrow, though I may or may not have the energy to report on it by the end of the day. I’ll do my best!
As for affordable housing and the high cost of land in Northumberland, does 21 Kingsley Ave. come to mind – secretely purchased by Brighton for over $600K for unknown purpose – or have I got that wrong?
Hi David,
Land purchases are something municipalities usually do in Closed session, so yes, it was secret (until it was done, then it was daylighted). Municipalities do this not least because it gives us an advantage in a real estate negotiation – or rather, it partially negates a huge disadvantage. Often, when someone learns that it is a municipality that wants to purchase land, the price shoots up; there is an assumption that we have deep pockets, and that we only buy land if we really, really need it. (The latter is usually true, the former is most certainly not.) It’s even common for speculators to try to purchase land before the municipality can get it done, and then sit on it while the land appreciates. If we publicly signalled that we were interested in a property, its price would almost inevitably go up significantly. So for the sake of good stewardship of public resources, we keep it quiet until the money has been spent, and then we give a full accounting.
As for land for affordable housing, as tempting as it is to put housing anywhere we own land, it isn’t clear that that’s the best use of that particular property. Its location makes it a perfect spot for additional parkland, growing Memorial Park. (We have a Parks and Rec Master Plan that identifies growing our amount of parkland as a priority.) We have, however, purchased other land that is better suited to affordable housing, and I’m very excited to see how we can develop it!