| Apartment vacancy rates drop |
| Lowest rate in decade alarms local manager
of housing registry |
| By Morgan Ian Adams |
| Enterprise-Bulletin (Tue, January 23, 2000) |
| COLLINGWOOD - Only two weeks into her job, and the program
manager of the town's new housing registry is raising the alarm on vacancy
rates. |
| Gail Michalenko says it will take political will on the
part of the provincial government to bring back the non-profit housing
programs killed by the Progressive Conservatives in 1995, in order to
entice developers to build affordable accommodation. |
| "We need both non-profit and market-priced
(accommodations), and that need is only going to escalate,"
Michalenko said. |
| Her comments come on the heels of recently released vacancy
rates from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which shows the
vacancy rate for apartments in Collingwood at its lowest point in a
decade. The Collingwood and Area Housing Resource Centre - which takes on
a similar form as the Collingwood Community Housing Project, a project
which ended in 1996 after funding was cut - opened on Jan 2, and was
created as a housing registry service to match tenants to landlords. |
| The project will also identify opportunities for
intensification, work with industry and other regional municipalities in
setting affordable housing targets and provide consulting. |
| The project is being jointly funded through grants from
Human Resources Development Canada, the provincial Homelessness Initiative
Fund, the Town of Collingwood, and the United Way of South Georgian
Bay. The project is also being supported by Community Connection. |
| The service, identified as a need in the Vision 20/20
report, is in response to the growing concern about the availability of
affordable housing for current area residents as well as those who may be
moving to the area for employment. |
| Local industries are predicting they will require 500-800
new workers in the next five years, while Intrawest is projecting it's
development will employ about 3,600 people. |
| "I've been on the job for two weeks, and I've seen
people who are in really desperate situations - and it's getting
worse," Michalenko said. "You look at the Intrawest
development, and the numbers they'll bring in to the community to work,
and there's going to be a major crisis unless affordable housing is
created." |
| About 20 people have already walked through the agency's
doors - three of whom fall under the category of homeless. While not
living on the street, Michalenko pointed out these people are living in
very temporary situations, such as on someone's couch. |
| "And they're homeless because of the economic
situation, and not being able to afford the rents," she said. |
| According to the latest vacancy rate statistics from CMHC,
Collingwood's vacancy rate for all apartments was 1.3 per cent for October
2000, nearly a half-percentage point decrease from the same time last
year. |
| In that same time, the average rent has increased about $20
a month, from $577 in October 1999, to $594. |
| When broken down, there's absolutely no vacancies for
bachelor or three-bedroom apartments, according to the CMHC statistics,
while there's a 2.1 per cent vacancy rate for one-bedroom apartments, and
a one per cent vacancy for two-bedroom apartments. |
| The average vacancy rate is also slightly below the
national average of 1.6 per cent; the national rate is also lower then the
same time the previous year, when it was 2.1 per cent. |
| Collingwood's average vacancy rate in October is also
exactly where it was in October, 1990. However, the rate ballooned
to 7.4 per cent in October, 1995. |
| Average monthly rentals are $425 for a bachelor ($403 for
the same time the previous year); $543 for a one-bedroom ($533); $656 for
a two-bedroom ($634); and $692 for a three-bedroom ($615). |
| "The rates don't appear to be going up drastically,
but you would be hard pressed to find those prices," Michalenko said,
noting the register has a listing for a one-bedroom for 625 per month. |
| The housing registry will not be able to offer a full
registry service because it will be necessary to build up housing
stock. Staff will be able to assist people who find themselves in
emergency situations, and will answer questions relating to the Tenant
Protection Act from either landlords or tenants. |
| At the moment, Michalenko is attempting to push the idea of
intensification in order to create additional housing units - an idea
supported in the town's proposed Official Plan - though she admits
"That's only a small part of the solution." |
| She said the provincial government ahs to "get the
ball rolling" by reintroducing programs cut in the mid-1990s in order
to encourage developers to build rental units. |
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