From the county's corporate communications office:

*****

Bruce County is pleased to announce the launch of the second phase of the Affordable Housing Development Toolkit. This phase shares a Multi-Residential and Ground-Related Affordable Housing guide with developers, builders, and homeowners that offers step-by-step resources covering five key areas of the development process: finding land, design, financing and funding, planning and approvals, and construction and pre-occupancy.

This guide also contains insights and considerations specific to the County context, as well as tools to help affordable housing projects come to life.

There is demand across Bruce County for more compact homes that are close to amenities, particularly in central and newly developing areas. Building affordable or mixed-affordability projects with appropriate density can be financially beneficial to developers. Explore the Multi-Residential and Ground-Related Affordable Housing guide here. 

Multi-residential affordable housing could include:

• Low to mid-rise apartment buildings
• Mixed-used developments

Ground-related affordable housing could include:

• Properties with additional residential units (ARUs)
• Duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes
• Tiny home communities
• Infill housing

“Ensuring everyone has a home starts with fostering housing diversity. In Bruce County, we need more affordable housing of all shapes and sizes. Developers and builders have a role to play in creating the kinds of homes our communities need,” says Tania Dickson, Manager of Housing Services. “Increasing the affordable housing stock is a key strategy in Bruce County’s Housing and Homelessness Plan.”

“Developers, builders, landlords, and homeowners are encouraged to seize the opportunity to create the affordable housing that communities in Bruce County need,” adds Christine MacDonald, Director of Human Services. “Bruce County Planning & Development and Human Services departments can assist at each stage of the development process to ensure a win-win for all. Together, we can create the housing we need to sustain a healthy and prosperous future for Bruce County.”

Discover the Multi-Residential and Ground-Related Affordable Housing Guide.
Revisit the Affordable Housing 101 Guide.

Background Information:
The phased updates to Bruce County’s Affordable Housing Development Toolkit features guides tailored to developers of multi-residential buildings, developers and builders of low to medium density housing, and homeowners or landlords who could intensify their properties. These toolkits will build on the Affordable Housing 101 Guide.

It is broadly accepted that housing is affordable when a household is not spending more than 30% of its income on housing costs. The province has also defined affordable housing thresholds for households of low and moderate income. For ownership housing, the affordable housing threshold is housing that is affordable to households with incomes at the 60th percentile. For renter households, the affordable housing threshold is 100% of average market rent as published by Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation (CMHC). In Bruce County, the affordable housing thresholds for 2020 were rents below $1,014 and ownership costs below $346,600.

*****

source: media release, Bruce County