Controversy arises as proposal to attach affordable housing requirement to downtown development grant falls short of support

Committee votes down incentives for construction Should city hall attach new strings to the financial grant that offsets development charges on residential construction in downtown London?

Should city hall attach new strings to the financial grant that offsets development charges (DCs) on residential construction in downtown London?

On Monday, a motion to make municipal incentives conditional on downtown developers including a small number of affordable housing units, failed to receive enough support from members of the Planning and Environment Committee (PEC).

During a discussion about updating the Community Improvement Plans (CIPs) that the city uses to incentivize property redevelopment, Coun. Skylar Franke initially suggested suspending the Downtown Residential Development Charge Grant for four years (2024-2027) and redirecting the money to incentivize new affordable housing.

Since 2018, just seven residential projects received a total of $25.2 million dollars from the downtown grant program — about a quarter of all incentive funds allocated ($104.7 million) in London.

“Developers, in my opinion, would be building downtown given the market conditions now, whether or not they’re receiving some of the DC rebates,” argued Franke.

However, her motion motion faced resistance from some other PEC members who worried that it might slow high-density residential development at all affordability levels.

“We want more affordable units, but we [also] want all units. We want units across all price points,” responded Deputy Mayor Shawn Lewis. “Forty-seven thousand units of housing is our goal to meet the province’s ask.”

Mid-debate Franke changed strategy — revising her motion to instead require a small number of affordable units at 80 per cent average market rent to qualify for the downtown development charge grant.

“The opportunity to have the discussion with a developer that if you want these DC rebates you need five or 10 per cent of the units to be affordable,” she explained.

Mayor Josh Morgan spoke against the motion, worried it would “box the city into a corner” before some new provincial policies are finalized.

“The province is going to waive development charges in part on affordable units and attainable units, but they haven’t defined what attainable means yet,” Morgan explained.

The motion to make the grant conditional on including some affordable units was seconded by Coun. Anna Hopkins, but was defeated 4-2 with Morgan, Lewis, Lehman and Hillier opposed.

Afterwards, Franke told CTV News she will consider reviving her motion in two weeks.

“The council [meeting] is a new day, so perhaps I’ll have this discussion again with all of council.”

Council meets on June 27.