One specific action I would take is to create a City-led Affordable and Attainable Housing Action Plan that removes municipal barriers to building more housing, while setting clear four-year targets for what we actually want to achieve. That means identifying City-owned land that could be made available for housing, speeding up approvals for projects that provide affordable or attainable units, reviewing zoning and development policies that unnecessarily limit housing options, and working with non-profit, private and senior levels of government to bring those projects forward. I would also want the City to establish a clear definition of what “attainable housing” means for Sarnia—not just subsidized housing, but housing that working people, young families, seniors and first-time buyers can realistically afford. By the end of my four-year term, I would expect us to have measurably increased the number of affordable and attainable housing units being built and created a pipeline of additional projects on City-owned or appropriately designated land. More importantly, I would want residents to be able to see exactly what was promised, what was approved, what was built, and how many people were housed as a result. We cannot build our way out of the housing crisis overnight, but we can make it easier, faster and more predictable to build the right kinds of housing in Sarnia. My goal would be to move from talking about the housing crisis to having a measurable four-year housing strategy with real results.
