The Bruce County Human Services Committee is receiving a report detailing housing demographics this week as the latest step to tackle affordable housing.
Director of Planning and Development at Bruce County Claire Dodds says consultants KPMG have put together a report detailing the state of housing in the county, and will be brought to the committee for information purposes on Feb. 2.
She adds the foundational information included is going to assist the county in moving ahead with its housing and homelessness plan update, which occurs every five years.
“It’s a series of demographic statistics that looks at what our housing stock is and who is occupying that housing stock,” says Dodds.
The data in the report shows how between 2016 and 2021, the county’s population grew by 8.3 per cent for an additional 5,526 residents. It was also found 60 per cent of the county’s population falls within the working age group of between 15 to 64-years-of-age.
Additionally, between 2016 and 2021, the number of dwelling units in the county increased by four per cent for a total of 1,562 additional units. It was found single detached houses remained popular in both 2016 and 2021, with Northern Bruce Peninsula, Huron-Kinloss, South Bruce Peninsula, and South Bruce having the highest share of single detached houses in the region.
The value of dwellings across the county also increased by 76 per cent between 2016 and 2021, compared to the provincial growth of 59 per cent.
Following the presentation of the report to the committee, it will then be brought to a housing forum the county will be hosting on Feb. 9 in Walkerton, where they will engage with local political figures and stakeholders.
“We need to understand what the state of our current housing situation is, in order to be able to develop a longer term strategy for addressing the housing needs in our community,” says Dodds. “That’s in part our conversations with our municipal partners, is to understand more about where there is the need, interest in terms of different types of housing initiatives.”
She adds the county is continuing to work on a number of initiatives, including developing toolkits to assist with the development of affordable housing.
Dodds says while they do not have a firmly articulated strategy to tackle affordable housing in the region, they will continue to have talks with municipal partners and are looking at affordable housing as a multi-pronged initiative.
“There will need to be solutions put in place and an environment created that is supportive for affordable housing so that essentially everyone can do their part, whether that is that county in terms of social housing builds, whether it’s developers through providing higher density and different unit types, or an individual home-owner who wants to be able to put in an additional apartment for relatives or open to market rent. Definitely we see this as a complex issue and it requires a multi-pronged solution,” says Dodds.
The Human Services Committee will be reviewing the report during it meeting on Feb. 2 at 9:30 a.m.
