Printed Oct 22, 2024 • Final up to date Oct 22, 2024 • 2 minute learn
Sarnia Metropolis Corridor is proven on this file photograph. (The Observer)
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Sarnia is poised to obtain extra money beneath Ontario’s housing-target program.
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After smashing final yr’s 73-unit goal — Sarnia added 254 items in 2023 and acquired $400,000 — town already has exceeded its goal for 2024, in response to provincial monitoring.
Sarnia’s tally is 102 items to this point this yr, in response to ontario.ca/web page/tracking-housing-supply-progress.
That’s practically 123 per cent of town’s provincially assigned 83-unit objective.
“We’re eligible to receive between 80 per cent and the 125 per cent of the allocated $800,000,” relying on efficiency, stated metropolis treasurer Kristen McGill.
That works out to between $600,000 and $1 million, she stated.
How a lot cash Sarnia will obtain precisely isn’t but clear, stated Steve Henschel, town’s communications supervisor.
New long-term care items and present properties transformed to residential additionally depend within the complete, he stated.
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Sarnia has pledged to start out 1,000 items by 2031, a part of the province’s 1.5-million-unit plan.
The sum of money cities obtain from improvement charges was curtailed in recent times beneath the provincial Extra Houses Constructed Quicker Act, together with exemptions for reasonably priced housing initiatives.
Sarnia was one amongst 50 municipalities prolonged sturdy mayor powers to assist it obtain its housing targets and to permit entry to constructing sooner fund {dollars} as compensation for improvement cost losses, Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley has stated.
Metropolis corridor, in the meantime, is also planning for methods to spend the $400,000 it acquired after 2023’s outcomes.
A report coming to council Monday suggests placing the funds towards an estimated $20.6-million, 1.5-kilometre Wellington Avenue extension undertaking.
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The undertaking that may lengthen the highway and water essential to Blackwell Facet Street is without doubt one of the keys to unlocking extra housing in Sarnia’s Improvement Space 2, a 570-hectare (1,408-acre) parcel bounded by London and Confederation strains, and Modeland Street and Blackwell.
Sarnia additionally not too long ago acquired a $7.9-million provincial grant for the undertaking, for which environmental evaluation work is underway.
That housing enabling water programs fund grant cash needs to be spent by March 31, 2027.
If council approves the plan, the constructing sooner fund {dollars} from 2023 and about $183,000 of the grant would go towards detailed design work for the Wellington Avenue undertaking, Henschel stated.
“It’s something we’re certainly looking at advancing,” he stated concerning the undertaking, noting funds particulars for 2025 are nonetheless pending and topic to council deliberations.
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