By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
Consultant Keith Herring of Northumberland Workforce Housing Corporation is passionate about housing.
“The promise made to the public is, if you go to school and get a good job, you get a house and you get to live in the community,” Herring said at Wednesday’s Cobourg council meeting.
Unfortunately, ballooning down payments and the cost of everything from grocery to hockey have made saving up for a down payment impossible. He sees nurses who can’t afford such a purchase and construction workers who could never afford the house they’re building.
The work of this not-for-profit group is not about people who don’t have a place to live, but are renting currently with little hope of home ownership.
Northumberland Workforce Housing is an independent corporation tasked with building below-market-rate housing for Northumberland families with a total household income of less than $135,000. It’s modeled after a Calgary counterpart, created and funded through Northumberland County to address missing-middle housing by taking excess or underused land from the county land registry and land donated from member municipalities for housing projects.
With a process similar to that of Habitat For Humanity, the group identifies eligible candidates and helps them through the qualification process, providing a percentage of the initial down payment and taking back a second mortgage to ensure the land equity remains in the community.
Eligible land parcels have been identified in four of Northumberland’s seven municipalities – in Cobourg, that land is on Furnace Street west of the former arena. The plan is to build four units there, all with construction financing through partner agencies.
Each would have a primary mortgage with the candidate’s bank and a secondary mortgage with the organization – which would share the appreciation on the project and recapture the down payment on a reducing scale over time, which in the end means more equity for the resident.
The benefits are four rental units freed up as four families move to taxable housing, as well as construction jobs being created. Unused land will be used, and there is no risk to the town.
The ask is to transfer the land to the Corporation for $1 and rezone the property from institutional to residential. Should the project not move forward before 2028, the land would be returned to the town.
It’s a cart-before-the-horse situation, Herring said – nothing can happen until the corporation gets the land.
“For me, this is a no-brainer moving forward,” Deputy Mayor Nicole Beatty said.
Councillor Randy Barber made the motion to refer the delegation to town staff for a report back.
