Ontario Construction News staff writer
The City of Barrie has committed $1 million to a new community improvement plan (CIP), to encourage investment in affordable housing, redevelopment projects, heritage buildings.
There are three grant programs available:
- The Redevelopment Grant provides incentives to promote the redevelopment of underutilized sites within the Urban Growth Centre and identified strategic growth areas including brownfield sites for mixed sues including residential, commercial, office and institutional.
- The Preservation of Built Heritage Grant provides financial assistance for renovating buildings listed on the municipal heritage registry.
- The Affordable Housing Development Grant provides incentives for the development of affordable housing units with target housing solutions for low and low-moderate income households. This program will encourage construction of purpose-built rental units.
Developers can apply for funding with the first round open until March 31, 2020.
Proposed incentives include grants for a percentage of fees and charges and tax increment-based funding. For Brownfield sites, there will be opportunities to cover remediation work and required reports related to brownfield redevelopment. The CIP will also provide grants for interior and exterior renovations to heritage properties.
“I think staff have got the goals (of the CIP) right and the programs right. We’re going to try it and if it doesn’t work, there can be changes for funding allocations,” Mayor Jeff Lehman said in BarrieToday.ca.
The plan is to encourage investment with financial incentives that may be applied to eligible properties for projects that conform to established goals, objectives and policies.
Lehman says approving financial incentives was a “significant step forward” for Barrie, to make it easier for developers to build affordable housing in Barrie.
“But it will also be very interesting to see if the redevelopment grant gains traction,” he is quoted saying by BarrieToday.ca.