City council continues to plan for more social and supportive housing in Barrie.
It gave final approval Monday night to a motion that staff investigate the possibility of undertaking a city-initiated Official Plan amendment and rezoning to an appropriate land use, including the completion of the remaining environmental studies on the 65 Vespra St. (site of the city's former downtown fire hall) and 70 Victoria St. property, and to report back before the property’s sale is further considered.
Coun. Keenan Aylwin, who represents this part of Barrie, says the city is in the midst of a housing crisis.
“All levels of government have failed to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness in our community. We have to do better,” he said. “One small way that the city can contribute to the fight for housing for all is to dedicate municipally owned land, like the Vespra Street property, to social or supportive housing projects.
“The reality is that the free market isn't building the affordable housing that we need and housing speculation has only served to drive prices up and people out of the market," he added. "Publicly funded social and supportive housing is what we need to support people who have been let down by our social support systems.”
The County of Simcoe is the service manager in Barrie for social-housing programs and is responsible for planning, funding and managing them.
“It is my hope that we can partner with the County of Simcoe or other social housing providers to build some much-needed housing for people who have been shut out of our housing market,” Aylwin said. “There's some planning work to do to ensure that a project of that kind is feasible on that site and that's why we've directed city staff to continue that work.”
In May 2019, council declared the land at 65 Vespra St., as well as 70 and 72 Victoria St., as surplus for the creation of affordable housing, one of the city's strategic priorities. The properties could be merged into one to make way for a larger development.
To make the old fire-hall site more workable, the city is also looking at making changes to local roads in the area, perhaps closing the section of Vespra Street between Sanford and Innisfil streets.
Environmental studies were done on the site to determine its development potential, for no more than $100,000, and funded from council's strategic priorities account. Studies found some remediation on the properties will be necessary prior to redevelopment. For example, the existing soil condition is not ideal for supporting heavy loads, according to a city staff report, which also notes the ground-water depth is between 1.3 and 3.4 metres below the surface.
The site served as Barrie fire department headquarters, facing onto Vespra Street, from 1965 until 2011.
The building, which also included city police headquarters until the early 1990s, was demolished in 2013.
