Our congregation includes about two dozen residents of Burlington and that city is about to approve a housing strategy to try to achieve a vision of Burlington as “a city where all current and future residents have access to the housing options that meet their needs at all stages of life, and that are attainable at all income levels.”
A background report says Burlington now has “no affordable housing ownership options for Burlington residents with a household income of less than $164,016, unless they had a down payment greater than 5% or spent more than 30% of their income on housing costs; and, that there are very few affordable rental options for Burlington residents with a household income of less than $72,887.” At that income, nothing over $1,800 a month is affordable. Rentals.ca says the average rent for an available rental in Burlington in April was $2,017, the third highest level in the country, trailing only Vancouver and Toronto.
Burlington’s new strategy includes 52 needed actions that range from speedy approval of applications for affordable housing to permission for semi-detached homes in zones that now allow only one unit to requiring a minimum number of secondary units in new developments.
There is only one mention in the whole strategy of co-operative housing and few of non-profits. Only one proposal is aimed at non-profits, yet only non-profits and co-operatives build truly affordable housing.
You can read the strategy at https://burlingtonpublishing.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=45638
(City of Burlington Housing Strategy Terms of Reference)