Affordable Housing Strategy

Topic

Planning

Adopted or Last Updated

2015

The City's Affordable Housing Strategy (PDF) aims to encourage, stimulate and increase the supply and range of affordable housing options to meet the needs of our residents, at all income levels and stages of life.

The City of Barrie's Affordable Housing Strategy (AHS), completed in 2015, is a 10-year plan based on the County of Simcoe’s Affordable Housing Strategy. The City’s goal was to create 840 affordable units by 2024 and this goal was achieved in 2020.

Affordable Housing Task Force

On March 22, 2021, Barrie City Council approved a motion that included the establishment of an Affordable Housing Task Force. In January 2022 the task force presented to General Committee:

The City's Role in Affordable Housing

The County of Simcoe is the designated service manager for the City under the Housing Services Act, 2011. The County is responsible for planning, funding and managing social housing programs and homelessness services. The City can encourage and facilitate the provisions of affordable housing through initiatives, programs and policies; however, the City does not provide or manage housing.

Creating Affordable Rental Units

The City recognizes there is a shortage of affordable housing, in particular affordable rental housing. Barrie is not alone in this, and the City is working on several initiatives to address this problem.

The City has updated the Second Suites policy and laws to allow existing property owners to register secondary rental units more quickly and easil, including within the Georgian College Neighbourhood area. The City has also implemented the provincial requirements to permit a third dwelling unit, in the form of a detached accessory dwelling unit (DADU), as an accessory use to a single detached dwelling, semi-detached dwelling or street townhouse dwelling. The City recently made additional updates to the standards for second suites and DADUs to address concerns regarding affordability and land use compatibility.
Simcoe County continues to offer grants to eligible property owners encouraging them to add affordable second suites to their properties.

Our Progress

965 Affordable Units as of December 31, 2021 (114.9% of 840 unit goal)

965 affordable units total as of December 31, 2021.
The City gained 93 affordable housing units (90 rental units and three home ownership units) in 2021.
The largest contributor to affordable housing units is unfunded second suites (suites added to existing homes that do not receive funding support from the County of Simcoe). At the same time, municipalities have no control over regulating what these suites are rented for. Given this, the County of Simcoe has started to estimate how many of these units are actually affordable. When the estimated rate (also known as the discount rate) is applied, the total count of new affordable units created in Barrie, as of December 31, 2021, drops from 965 to 712 units.
For full details please refer to 2021 Affordable Housing Monitoring Report.
872 affordable units total as of December 31, 2020.
The City has surpassed the goal of 840 affordable housing units, due largely to the number of new unfunded second suites. Only 14% of the affordable housing units are purpose-built, primary rental units, which shows more focus is needed in this area.
$1,777,780 in Affordable Housing Development Grants was awarded in 2020 under the City’s Community Improvement Plan for future housing units.
For full detail please refer to Affordable Housing Monitoring Report (Reporting Period: January 2018 to December 2020).
- 320 units, mostly rental, have been added to the stock of affordable housing in Barrie.
- Full report, including breakdown of unit types, in the 2017 Affordable Housing Annual Monitoring Report

Last updated April 9, 2021. Affordable housing units are counted when they are move-in ready. Units counted include those that the City can be certain will remain affordable over
time such as social housing units, housing created with government funding, units
owned or operated by housing providers, and a percent of second suites.

"Affordable Housing" Defined

Affordable housing encompasses a range of housing types allowing all residents to find suitable living space without spending a disproportionate percentage of their income. It can include ownership, rental or social housing.

Affordable Housing is defined by the Provincial Policy Statement as well as the City’s Official Plan as:

In the case of home ownership, the least expensive of:

housing for which the purchase price results in annual accommodation costs which do not exceed 30% of gross income for low to moderate income households; or
housing for which the purchase price is at least 10% below the average purchase price of a resale unit in the regional market area.

In the case of rental housing, the least expensive of:

a unit for which the rent does not exceed 30% of gross annual income for low to moderate income households; or
a unit for which rent is at or below the average market rent of a unit within the regional market area.

Affordable housing is a complex and multi-faceted issue. No single level of government or element is the cause or can be held responsible for the solution. It is all of our collective efforts that will generate results.