CambridgeToday received the following letter concerning the community's housing shortage.
We need BUILD NOW for 10,000 homes by 2030
Recent CMHC data shows that Waterloo region is building only at a rate of 54% of what is required to achieve our 10-year housing goals.
Creative and collaborative methods are needed to achieve housing development acceleration during a period of uncertainty from pricing and mortgage rates, both of which are dampening housing starts.
Developers are faced with lack of business and excess capacity. They do not wish to reduce their staff and so have banded together to propose BUILD NOW to the region.
BUILD NOW is a massive 10,000-unit project, pro bono (without markup) and enables developers to maintain their staff levels and rapidly provide a large new build affordable housing project.
A key requirement for this project is the provision of land from underutilized resources in the region from municipalities. When all factors are considered, housing can be built at about half the market cost.
This is an unprecedented opportunity that is staring municipalities in the face. We should come to agreement with the parties in collaboration immediately and set the wheels in motion.
Coupled with this is an opportunity for municipal planning departments to significantly streamline and shorten timelines for approval and administration. This opportunity will benefit municipalities significantly as it can free up needed planning resources.
These resources are needed to accomplish the other 60,000 units that will be required to fulfill the region's commitment for housing as a part of the provincial government’s building program.
Citizens for Cambridge see this as an urgent and essential collaboration. It will put Waterloo region in the forefront of building homes that are affordable and attainable for the much-needed workforce that we require to match growth projections.
Given everyone's concern and preoccupation with affordable housing this should be a top priority project requiring all the best hands-on-deck for a fully expedited effort.
We commend the organizations that have come together for BUILD NOW.
BUILD NOW is a genuinely inventive and creative process that can go a long way to solving a major crisis and economic challenge that our region faces.
Let's get on with it now.
Thanks,
Keith Rivers
June Anderson
Dan Clements
John Egoff
Bob Howison
Amanda Maxwell
Leanne Taylor Shanks
Anne Tinker
Citizens for Cambridge
http://www.citizensforcambridge.org/
Improving the future of Cambridge as a community
