The decision means that after more than three years spent enlisting support within the community and the town and county councils there is a realistic hope of getting shovels in the ground by year’s end.

St. James has played a leadership role in Community Housing Initiative Perth (CHIP) the organization that successfully lobbied the town council to transfer town land at 63 Halton St.  The council approved the transfer to Carebridge Community Support for one dollar in April, allowing Carebridge to respond to Lanark’s Request for Proposals for capital funding.  The Carebridge – CHIP proposal won over three other applications.

CHIP is embarking on a $300,000 fundraising campaign. The Rev. Canon Kenneth Davis, rector of St James and co-chair of CHIP, says the first contribution will be $10,000 from St. James.  The funds come from a portion of the sale of St. Augustine’s chapel on the Franktown Road which the Diocese allowed St. James to retain. The amount happens to be equal to the seed money provided by the Diocese to St. James to help get the project started.

Canon Davis has encouraged anyone in the congregation who wishes, to make a donation to St. James and it will be added to the $10,000.

He has also challenged all churches in Perth to match St. James’s donation.  “I’d like us as Christians in town to aim for at least a third of the $300,000 goal.”

Carebridge Community Support, as owner and developer, (with the Saumure Group as contractor), has offered to match CHIP’s fundraising from its own equity, effectively doubling the total.  CHIP’s fundraising co-chairs Claire Smith and Linda Chaim are optimistic about finding another matching donor.

The approved project is for 15 units, seven designated for rent-geared-to-income tenants (to pay no more than one third of household income), the remaining eight at rates well below market rents ($720 a month for a single bedroom apartment and $895 for two bedrooms). Tenants will come from Lanark County’s wait list of about 450, half from Perth.

CHIP plans to host two meetings this fall to address concerns of neighbours. Town officials will

be invited to attend. The first meeting, likely in late September, will be to hear any recommendations and concerns. Detailed building design and plans will be introduced in a second meeting about a month later.

Canon Davis says neighbours are divided, some enthusiastically in support. “There are still some NIMBY people (not in my back yard) — no question.” He puts some of the concerns down to poor communications with the town over several years.

Concern that the project may be enlarged in future will be allayed by a firm undertaking that it will not be. The site will be 40 feet from the nearest private property and adjacent green space will not be encroached. Recognizing that tenants may not have experience living in a new home, a team of trained volunteers with lived experience be available to help them. The model will be a team of volunteers that St. James organized to help settle Syrian refugees.

“We have to work with the town’s poison pill (unique in our county) of not waiving taxes and development fees,” Canon Davis says.  Considering taxes over 20 years, he estimates, this is adding close to a $1 million to the total cost. The cost, set at about $3 million, will now be more than $4 million.

“Our town wants to profit financially from an affordable housing project…on a piece of property from which it has never received a dime of taxes,” he says. “It’s town-owned land that used to be a public works site.”

Lanark County on the other hand has waived its share of the taxes, providing an annual operating grant equal to the taxes to Carebridge.

Carebridge already has 221 units in the county, including the 34 in the Smiths Falls project supported by St. John the Evangelist, providing a mix of rent-geared-to-income, affordable and market units.

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St. James took the initiative two years ago to establish CHIP as representative of the wider Perth community. Since then, CHIP members have worked with the town and Lanark County, overcoming setbacks and obstacles keep the project alive.

The council’s vote to transfer the land allowed the CHIP group just enough time to meet a deadline for a proposal to Lanark County for capital funding of up to $1.5 million for groups wishing to create new affordable housing.

The Rev. Canon Ken Davis, rector of St. James, says while 15 units are a ‘drop in the bucket’ compared to the number of people waiting for help, it’s a tremendous start for marginalized residents. 

He says people don’t realize how desperate the situation is—like people without proper housing keeping warm overnight in ATM foyers at local banks or living in their cars in parking lots. 

He also says it’s frustrating when rent subsidies are available from the county, but the funds can’t be used because of the lack of available housing.    

“Our hope is to help town leaders see the needs in Perth for those who don’t have a safe and affordable place to live,” Davis says.  “Once we succeed, with cooperation from the town, the county and the neighbourhood, we hope it can be a model for others.”

CHIP Co-Chair Dave Kroetsch of St. James says the group is grateful for the town’s decision. “Mayor Judy Brown and Councillors Gary Waterfield and Isabel-Anne McRae have supported our cause for close to a year and a half.  It’s another step towards providing safe and healthy housing for some of the hundreds of residents in need, including single seniors, those on disability pensions or single-parent families.”

Following the council’s decision, Carebridge Community Support technically became owner of the land at 63 Halton St, with the Saumure Group as builders and CHIP as advisors and fundraisers.

An extensive planning process has begun to address public concerns, drainage, traffic, the environment, and zoning to prepare a final site plane for town approval.

Robert Eves, CEO of Carebridge, says there has been community opposition to the size and type of the project. “To ensure a successful outcome, it’s imperative we have robust public consultation and that we establish a strong partnership with the municipality.” 
Eves explains that 15 units is the break-even point and the more units built, the less expensive each unit is.  One contributing factor is that Perth council did not support CHIP’s original request for a 20-year suspension of taxes for the building.  For the similar-purpose building on Chambers Street in Smiths Falls, supported by St. John the Evangelist, the Smiths Falls council approved a 20-year tax abatement to help with funding.

Lanark County’s 10-year Housing and Homelessness Plan provided a set of recommendations on incentives including: full or partial waivers of development fees, expediting development reviews and waiving or reducing property taxes for a period of time.

chip-housing.ca

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St. James has been actively advocating for an affordable housing project, badly needed in the town, since 2021. Instead of going it alone the parish enlisted well-known Perth citizens in a steering committee under the name Caring Community Housing Initiative Perth (CHIP).

In consultations with the town council and staff, the committee developed a project, and the town identified a specific lot for the project.

Early last year, the town provided the CHIP team with advice about how to apply for the land that would be gifted, with the waiving of development fees. A positive spirit of co-operation continued until two meetings in December.

“We felt that we were being treated as strangers, even while members of council smiled and spoke politely to us,” summed up the Rev. Canon Ken Davis following the second meeting.

The council decided it would take no further action on affordable housing in the town until it consulted Lanark County Council.

Further, it said the land it had identified last summer as suitable for the project and had agreed to do preparatory work on it should instead be put out to anyone interested through a Request for Proposals (RFP).

Comments by Mayor Judy Brown and some councillors suggested reluctance to gift the land. During the municipal election campaign in 2022 Mayor Brown had promised to identify suitable town-owned land for the project.

Other municipalities within the county, Mississippi Mills (Almonte) and Smiths Falls did gift land for a nominal fee that has resulted in expanded affordable housing, including the 35-unit project supported by St. John the Evangelist in Smiths Falls.

Brown said she intended to have a housing strategy meeting for council and staff in 2024. The CHIP committee members vowed to do their own strategizing in the hope that obstacles can be overcome.

St. James’s commitment to support affordable housing has its roots in another cause. In 2015, the parish rose to a challenge to help settle Syrian refugees. Back then, Canon Davis said, he was approached “by more than a few people in this town with critical comments like, ‘Why can’t we do more to help people right here? There are lots of people in our own community who need our help.’ They were right in saying so.”

Thus began St. James’s challenge to develop affordable housing, at the same time reflecting the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa’s priority for community outreach. It began with a modest vision to create three units a year for three years. It turned out that the land identified by the town was zoned for 10 to 12 units. The CHIP group happily expanded the scope of their project.

Carebridge Community Support, the social services organization in Lanark County with a proven track record in developing and managing affordable housing, came onboard as the potential owner and operator.

Numerous formal and informal meetings were held with town staff and councillors—always collaborative and positive in tone—until December.

What happened?

Comments by the mayor about the need for “fiscal responsibility” and by a councillor about determining the value of the land before sending out any RFP suggested possible second thoughts about gifting the land.

Councillors cited a decision by Lanark County in November to issue its own request for proposals (RPF) in the amount of $1.5 million to build, own and operate affordable housing in the county.

Emily Hollington, the county director of social services, told Crosstalk the RFP was not intended to influence or in any way affect the Perth project. It was intended solely to encourage more affordable housing. “Hopefully they can get something going there.”

As it happens, the county’s RFP fits the Perth project quite well. But CHIP can’t apply for it until Carebridge owns the land and has completed surveys.

A likely issue is confusion over what constitutes “affordable housing.” For-profit developers who attended one of the December meetings have been claiming to offer affordable rents in their projects. But “affordable” rates for developer projects run in the $1,500 to $1,800 range, beyond the reach of the more than 700 people on the county waiting list.

Councillor Isabel McRae tried to convince her colleagues that the CHIP project is quite different, providing housing for the most vulnerable at below market rates. This is often 30 per cent of a household’s monthly income. She has offered advice to the CHIP group and help to salvage the project.

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It wasn’t quite the final approval the St James team, working through the community-based Caring Community Housing Initiative Perth (CCHIP), had been hoping for but it was grounds for celebration.

The council directed its planners to prepare the town-owned land at 63 Halton Street for the project of 10 to 12 units with a view to transferring it to Carebridge Community Support as owner and operator at a meeting in December. “We didn’t get all we asked for and we didn’t get it as soon as we wanted but we are very encouraged,” the Rev. Canon Ken Davis says.

The team had hoped the work that was mandated in October would have been done in August as originally promised, including reviews of zoning and green space requirements, establishing the legal description, drainage and design issues.

The project has proven to be challenging for the town as well as the St James-CCHIP team. After the town identified the site, mindful of NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) issues, the team went door-to-door, inviting all neighbouring property owners to a town-hall meeting.

Out of that meeting came the realization that the town had not done the necessary research, not only on the designated property but also on neighbouring land. It emerged that one owner had established a private driveway on town land.

Canon Davis told Crosstalk that town officials acknowledged in May that they had a mess to clean up that was not of the CCHIP project’s doing. They undertook to do the work during the summer for a meeting in August. But August came and went and nothing was done.

Part of the problem was that the planner was swamped by the demands of a 900-unit for-profit development at a golf course. It is projected to add 1,500 residents to the town but not one unit of affordable housing. The planner is required to respond to inquiries within a short time-frame. Every inquiry represented time away from the St. James-CCHIP project.

Just before the council meeting in October, the town hired an additional planner and expressed confidence that it would have the capacity to handle all projects.

The team made their presence felt by contacting councillors in an effort to prevent further delay.

When the town finally transfers the site on Halton Street, the focus will shift rapidly to financing.

The team plans to ask the town to partner with them and Carebridge in navigating the funding challenge. Carebridge’s experience with the project in Smiths Falls partially financed by St John the Evangelist is seen as a model. Carebridge enlisted Cahdco, the Ottawa non-profit developer for its expertise, and the project is on track for completion in record time.

“The application process is so thorny that you need help from a Cahdco,” Davis says. “Our steering committee could never pull it off and even Carebridge can’t do it themselves.”

He adds that the team hopes to minimize debt by maximizing grants as opposed to loans, while observing that the system works the other way around – favouring loans. This was a key point in the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa’s submission to the federal government last year.

Fundraising has always been part of the solution. Immediately after final approval a detailed website will be activated to launch the fundraising campaign. Promises of donations have been made, conditional on the project going ahead.

The waiting list for rent-geared-to-income in Lanark County is more than 470, with 237 in Perth.

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During last fall’s municipal election campaign Mayor Judy Brown promised to provide town-owned land for the project. Upon inspection, it turned out that the only suitable land is zoned for 12 to 20 units of affordable housing.

As a result, St James has undertaken “a breathtaking increase in our goal,” the Rev Canon Kenneth Davis says – from three units to 12.

The St James team, through a community group known as Caring Community Housing Initiative Perth (CCHIP), is working with the town and Carebridge Community Support, Lanark County’s affordable housing and social service agency, on an expanded project.  This involves revising a memorandum of understanding whereby Carebridge becomes the owner and developer of the property.

The first step was a meeting with the town’s development strategy team, chaired by town planner Joanna Bowes. “It was very encouraging,” Canon Davis says. “The staff are sending us their ‘shopping list’ of design and development recommendations to apply for the land and develop it, including the gift of land and the waiving of development fees.”

The designated land is one and a half blocks away from Perth’s main street and across from the town’s largest public school. While there has been no expressed nimbyism (not in my back yard) objections, the St James team are taking steps to head it off as much as possible.

The town has a provision that anyone resident within 150 metres of the development can make representation up to and including an appeal.

“We are optimistic,” Canon Davis says. “We have begun a process at St James to help people adopt the word yimby (yes in my back yard), and we hope to have it taken on by many in Perth.”

The CCHIP team are working with architect Gillian McAllister on two options for a building: one with four units on three floors, another with six on two floors. Models will be available to show neighbours that the building will not restrict sunlight. In both models four of the units will be fully accessible, four will have more than one bedroom and four will be single units.

The original plan called for only three units to be completed each year for three years. The expansion makes the project eligible for grants from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), where five units are the minimum to qualify, as well as other government support.

Although the project will be larger, the fundraising goal of $750,000 may not have to be changed. Donations are being channelled through the Perth and District Community Foundation.

Last year, St James recruited a team of six community leaders outside the parish to work with three representatives of the church as a steering committee under the CCHIP banner.

Brian Perkin, a director of the Perth and District Chamber of Commerce, in his capacity as communications and community liaison for CCHIP has arranged through Algonquin College for the donation of a logo.

St James has about $16,000 in available funds – seed money from the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa and from its own fundraising – to cover immediate costs such as revamping a website, surveys and architectural revisions.

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