Cash incentives to create more rental housing part of Mississauga’s plan

Mississauga may soon offer financial incentives to developers and homeowners as a way to get much-needed affordable housing built across the city.

If approved, the plan to encourage construction of more affordable rental housing in Mississauga will offer grants and financial incentives for a variety of rental units, City of Mississauga officials said in a news release this week.

Such rental units would include projects from larger-scale apartment buildings to additional residential units like garden suites and basement apartments.

“The need for affordable housing is an important issue, affecting one in three households in Mississauga,” city officials said. “For renters, housing affordability is especially challenging. Creating more affordable rental units is an important part of Mississauga’s Action Plan for New Housing.”

Officials added that encouraging “purpose-built” rental housing is important because:

City officials will present their plan to the public at next Tuesday night’s planning and development committee meeting at city hall. The session begins at 6 p.m. inside council chambers.

An overview of the proposed Affordable Rental Housing Community Improvement Plan will be given followed by feedback from those in attendance at the meeting.

The meeting will also be live streamed online.

The city, under Ontario’s Planning Act, is allowed to provide incentives such as grants and loans to help encourage development.

City officials are proposing their plan in the midst of an ongoing fight with the provincial government for more housing money.

They contend Mississauga is unfairly missing out on potentially tens of millions of dollars for new housing because of a flawed funding formula used by the Ontario government.

In late February, the city sent a letter to Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Paul Calandra outlining its concerns after Canada’s seventh-largest city was deemed ineligible for the latest round of funding via the province’s Building Faster Fund.

Essentially, the city argues, Mississauga came up empty funding-wise due to an insufficient number of housing starts, a measure it argues is completely out of its control.

The city is now pushing the Ontario government to “revisit how it allocates important housing funding to local municipalities” in hopes it will tweak its funding model.