South Stormont housing needs workshop talks ‘missing middle’

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LONG SAULT — South Stormont is the first individual municipality in the SDG to host a housing needs workshop with Re:Public Urbanism, held Wednesday night.

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The Montreal-based planning consultancy has been in the region recently, hosting a public information session at the Benson Center on Tuesday regarding Cornwall’s emergency shelter zoning regulations and rebuking the community housing development plan on 10 years for the SDG board on Monday.

In addition to the statistics specific to South Stormont, the Wednesday evening workshop led guests through hypothetical scenarios illustrating the challenges of finding housing in the community as a single mother, a young couple, and someone exiting homelessness. More than 20 community stakeholders were invited earlier in the day to attend the same presentation and workshop.

South Stormont CAO Debi Lucas said there is value in bringing this information to the community and encourages filling the ‘missing middle’ housing gap locally, which consists of housing for middle-income individuals and families, usually in the form of plexes or townhouses, with two to eight units per building. The dominant form of housing in most communities – and the villages of South Stormont – is a detached single-family house.

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With new commercial and industrial growth on the horizon for South Stormont, including at Long Sault Logistics Village, Lucas said more “missing middle” housing is a priority. Looking at the SDG growth management strategy adopted in 2023, a total of 1,850 new homes and 4,260 people are expected to move into the municipality by 2051.

“From the locality’s perspective, we are aware that housing is a concern. As an organization, we’ve tried to hire people who can’t find a place to live. I’ve heard from others who thought this would be a great place (to live), but the type of housing that’s available isn’t right (for them),” she said.

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“So maybe they’re an older couple looking to transition and they want to stay local … but they don’t want the (big) property with all the maintenance. There is the fact that young municipal employees move to bigger cities because they are tired of staying at home with mom and dad, they want an apartment, they want to start their own career and life, and they can’t. do it here because we (may not) have rental properties that are available.”

According to Statistics Canada 2021 data, the most common home (46%) in South Stormont are three-bedroom single-family units, and the most common household size (44%) is two people. Paul Hicks and Jesse McPhail of Re:Public Urbanism, who hosted the workshop, also discussed the concept of overcrowding and what it will lead to in the future if the status quo of single-detached house building continues.

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Situations that could arise from this, Hicks said, are a shift toward converting larger homes into multi-unit housing and a lack of purpose-built middle-income homes.

In brainstorming solutions to fill the missing middle, Hicks discussed the idea of ​​establishing community improvement plan (CIP) incentives. He also discussed building skills for development companies through extensive education on building housing larger than individual homes.

“I know right now, many of the changes in Ontario’s planning system over the last year … (are) to facilitate changes in zoning regulations and land use policy that will encourage more (missing middle housing),” McPhail said.

Residents are encouraged to learn more about the South Stormont Housing Needs Assessment and participate in two surveys that are posted at www.speakupsouthstormont.ca/housing-needs-assessment.

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