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The Peterborough and the Kawarthas Home Builders Association joined with the Ontario Home Builders Association on Tuesday in releasing a five-point plan to create more affordable housing locally and across the province.

The plan offers policy recommendations for the provincial government’s consideration, when it comes to affordable housing. On Wednesday at noon Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark plans to announce additional legislation to help municipalities build more homes faster.

“It’s general guidelines, and some of it is actually based off Bill 109, which Minister Steve Clark had released in March (2022) to get more housing built,” said Rebecca Schillemat, executive officer at the Peterborough and the Kawarthas Home Builders Association. “Eliminating red tape is the biggest buzzword in homebuilding.”

Red tape slows down the construction of new homes, she said, and those delays are expensive. Roughly 25 to 30 per cent of a home’s cost is from development charges, fees and delays, she said.

“This is a big issue right now,” Schillemat said. “People are leaving Peterborough, because they can’t afford it; the prices have gone up so much recently.”

While the average home price in Peterborough city and county has slid over the past few months since mortgage rates were increased, the average price of homes sold in June 2022 was $751,522, up 3.4 per cent from a year earlier.

Rent for a one-bedroom apartment in 2021 average $1,049, up from $990 in 2020, while two-bedroom apartment averaged $1,316, up from $1,191 in 2020, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

Another reason prices are high is that supply is not meeting demand, Schillemat said.

“That’s why we have a housing crisis,” she said. “The most houses ever built in Peterborough was 1988. Now, we have more people here, and the population increase has been going up for quite a few years. So, we’re not keeping up with the number of people that want to move here.”

Garnet Northey, president of the association, believes a lack of development has prevented housing from trickling down and that the solution lies at the top.

“The housing continuum is stalled, in that if you’re not building houses, you don’t have places for people to move up into,” Northey said. “And then, they’re not vacating housing down the line; they’re not vacating their entry level, they’re not vacating that rental, they’re not vacating that subsidized rental.”

The issue is not specific to Peterborough, according to the OHBA.

“Ontario has a housing shortage, and the lack of supply is driving up housing costs across the province,” stated Luca Bucci, CEO of the OHBA, in a newsletter. “Ontario needs to build at least 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years to restore affordable housing prices.”

The OHBA and the PKHBA’s five-point plan recommends:

“The average price of a home right now in Ontario is $1 million. That is 16 times the average income in Ontario,” Northey said. “So, look at what they use to determine if you qualify for a mortgage? The ratio used to be, up to two and a half times your income is what you can afford; you could maybe stretch it to three times Well, now it’s 16.”

There isn’t an overnight fix, he said, and it will likely take 10 years before people start seeing major changes in pricing, but that things will continue to get worse if nothing is done with incomes no keeping pace with rising housing costs.

“Aside from food, one of the very few things that affect every human being on this planet is a need for shelter,” Northey said. “Not everyone needs a car, but everyone needs food and shelter. It affects everybody.”

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