An Orillia resident is calling on the city to take a different approach to helping ease the affordable housing crisis – by putting housing above downtown parking lots.
Mike McMurter is pushing city officials to make use of municipal parking lots as sites for affordable housing projects – providing accommodations for downtown employees, seniors, students, and others – while maintaining on-site public parking spaces.
“There's a solid business case for building municipal affordable housing over top of municipal parking lots,” McMurter told OrilliaMatters. “The number of groups and individuals that will benefit is quite large.”
He said the benefits could be immeasurable.
“We’d have affordable housing for very targeted groups, like seniors, those that want to work downtown, and students,” he said. “The downtown benefits two ways: they would now have staff that would be living and working downtown, and they would have new customers.”
The idea was included among 21 action items in the city’s 2023 affordable housing plan, and proposes maintaining public parking on the ground level of municipal lots, with affordable housing developments built on top of the lots. McMurter has also proposed that the second level of such developments could be used for tenant parking.
Although the affordable housing plan was broadly endorsed by council last November, McMurter pushed city officials on the municipal parking lot concept in a recent letter to council.
“It’s time to put action in the action plan,” McMurter said.
“Building over top of municipal parking lots is not a new idea, but it seems to have gathered a lot of momentum – not only here, but a lot of other communities,” he said. “If you look at the press right now, there's a lot of interest in it, in Cambridge, Waterloo, Kitchener, Hamilton … and I think for us, it goes beyond just affordable housing.”
McMurter argues such developments could help alleviate staffing shortages downtown, contribute to downtown revitalization, decrease snow removal needs as public lots would be sheltered, on top of bringing needed affordable housing stock to the city.
“People would be able to park in a sheltered parking lot, and if the city chooses they could actually provide overnight parking,” he said. “What needs to be said though (is) there is not any loss of parking spots. The number of parking spots will still remain the same.”
With talks of intensification and a looming boundary expansion on the horizon, these types of developments could also help the city meet its long-term needs, said McMurter.
“It feeds into the concept of intensification,” McMurter said. “Not only is it in the action plan for affordable housing, but it falls in line with the discussions around intensification in the community.”
Cam Davidson, chair of the city’s affordable housing committee, supports the idea and stressed the importance of swift action on increasing affordable housing stock in the city.
“It's innovative thinking. It's forward thinking and it's badly needed,” he told OrilliaMatters. “Anything we can get that is sooner than later, I think, is very advantageous.”
Mayor Don McIsaac said the first steps on such an initiative will include requesting a staff report on its viability, though he did express support for the concept.
“We get that information and then we take the next step after that,” the mayor said. “I think it's a great idea – that doesn't mean we're gonna dig a hole in the ground tomorrow … but we’d investigate it."
The mayor said such an approach is what needs to be considered.
"I like the thinking, it’s innovative, a bit of a different sort of approach to things, and it does solve a number of the problems we have," said McIsaac.
“As we all know, the devil’s in the details, and there are things … we haven't thought of that could make it not work, and there are things that could absolutely make it work.”
The city’s affordable housing action plan, along with its other housing initiatives, may be read here.
