Local politicians and developers agree Cambridge council needs to keep pushing forward on affordable housing projects.
Habitat for Humanity Waterloo Region CEO Philip Mills said the biggest challenge when it comes to building affordable housing is finding space and support from local governments, both crucial to providing more housing options.
"We are in a crisis now," said Mills during a visit to 325 Shantz Hill this morning where the organization will be breaking ground soon on a 24-unit affordable townhouse complex.
"We need as much help as we can get from the province, region and municipalities to get our shovels in the ground."
When motions like building housing over parking are voted down, it doesn't bode well for the prospect of building in this city, Mills said.
"We want to still build in Cambridge, we love it here, but we need to start looking at some of those out-of-the-box ideas and try," he said. "We are not going to fix these issues with the same solutions that got us here in the first place."
Guelph MPP and Green Party leader, Mike Schreiner and Cambridge MPP Brian Riddell joined Mills for tours of the Shantz Hill development this morning and both agreed on the same thing; projects like these need shovels in the ground faster.
"One of the biggest setbacks to these projects is NIMBYism," said Riddell. "We let a lot of people into this country and we need jobs, we need housing, we need doctors and we need schools for them."
He said he's confident Cambridge can meet its provincial housing targets for the year if council gets on the same page.
"They could always be doing more, but I don't think there's one person on council who doesn't want to see housing being built, but we all need to work together," said Riddell.
Following on the requirements of the Build More Homes Faster Act, the City of Cambridge pledged to build 19,000 homes over the next 10 years.
In its first year, the city failed to reach 80 per cent of its target of 1,393 housing starts and lost out on getting $4.8 million from the province for reaching that goal.
Riddell said he hopes to set up a meeting with Mayor Jan Liggett, housing minister Paul Calandra and representatives from the region to talk about housing goals and how the city can achieve them.
Schreiner echoes the sentiment of his provincial colleague, adding that more municipally -and-provincially-owned surplus properties should be offered up for housing.
"We've been pushing for surplus provincial land to not be sold to the highest bidder. We are in a housing crisis and we need to make that land available for builders who are going to do affordable housing," said the Green party leader.
He laments Cambridge council's vote against Coun. Scott Hamilton's pitch to investigate housing over parking, but said the idea has since been picked up by other municipalities across the province including Kitchener, Guelph and Hamilton.
Habitat for Humanity will hopefully be able to break ground in the coming months after clearing up a few issues with the region over the LRT, which is eventually expected to travel down Shantz Hill on a route to downtown Cambridge.
"We wanted to get started over a year ago, but for unforeseen circumstances, we were not able to," said Mills. "We need the support of everyone, because we are in a catastrophe and this won't just go away."