This article was first published in CollingwoodToday, a Village Media publication.
Ontario's housing minister said he is committed to helping municipalities like Collingwood get increased and better capacity for water and wastewater if it means more homes can be built.
Paul Calandra, minister of municipal affairs and housing, was in town on May 3 to attend the groundbreaking for the apartment development off Highway 26 called Residences at Silvercreek.
The 187-unit development will include three buildings at four storeys each, containing one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments priced at market rent. Residences at Silvercreek developer, Skyline, hosted today's groundbreaking and minister's visit. The apartments are expected to be ready for occupancy in about two years.
Mayor Yvonne Hamlin, Simcoe-Grey MPP Brian Saunderson and Calandra each congratulated Skyline on the groundbreaking.
"It's been a long planning process," commented Saunderson, who remembers the development from when he served as mayor of Collingwood. "It's a very important step forward for us in this community because rental housing is a critical shorfall in this area."
Jason Castellan, the CEO of Skyline Group of Companies said the three apartment buildings at Silvercreek will bring 33 per cent more rental supply to the Collingwood housing rental market.
"Rental housing is a critical component of our housing ecosystem," said Castellan.
The Skyline project did hit a speed bump along the way to development because of Collingwood's water capacity issues, which prompted the last town council to implement a development freeze. Since then, the freeze has been lifted and replaced with a capacity allocation policy and the town has hired a contractor to build an expanded water treatment facility at a cost of $270 million shared between Collingwood and New Tecumseth.
Both municipalities have struggled to come up with a funding plan to pay the nearly $300 million for an increase to the town's water capacity, which is also piped to New Tecumseth.
Minister Calandra acknowledged Collingwood's water capacity challenge, and noted he's heard from all the province's municipalities that they can't build the 1.5 million homes the provincial government is asking for without water and wastewater upgrades.
"We announced a $1.8 billion infrastructure fund," said Calandra, clarifying the distribution method for the fund hasn't been determined yet. That's in addition to a $120 million fund set aside for small and rural communities for infrastructure.
Calandra didn't say if Collingwood was going to get some of the $1 billion.
"I'm looking for two things: what is ready, and where can we get housing built quickly?" said Calandra.
He did acknowledge the $1 billion will fall short of the need across the province, Collingwood's project alone is close to $300 million.
"It's honestly just a start," said Calandra. "It's part of the reason why every province is ... discussing with the federal government how the gas tax fund, the Canada Community Building Fund should be focused on water and wastewater and a portion of the infrastructure that they announced in their budget be specifically earmarked toward water and wastewater. I think that they are sympathetic to that."
Collingwood CAO Sonya Skinner confirmed the town has applied, with New Tecumseth, for $70 million in provincial funding (the limit is $35 million per municipality).
"Even though we've awarded the tender [for the water plant], it's a very difficult financial situation," said Skinner during an interview at the groundbreaking. "We did, in our application, try to enhance it to say, we don't even know if $70 million is enough between the two municipalities."
Skyline's CEO Castellan, commended the town for figuring out a way to work with Skyline to make the water allocation work and for prioritizing rental housing for the town's remaining water capacity.
"That was very important to get here," he said. "This development is about meeting the need for rental housing in Collingwood, while at the same time promoting sustainability and community."
