Kitchener to explore idea of building housing over parking lots

The conversation about building affordable housing over surface parking lots continues as the City of Kitchener will now explore the idea.

A motion introduced by Coun. Dave SchniderMonday night passed unanimously. He said city staff are alreadylooking into surplus or underutilized lands in the city that could be used for housingand wantedsurface parking lots to be added to the mix.

"Our team are already deeply working on this, so this isn't anything that's new and surface parking lots are part of our land inventory," Schnidersaid.

"The reason I brought this forth was to highlight surface parking lots as another tool to help us address affordable and supportive housing needs in our community."

Schnider's motion requested that staff come back with a list of options for council's consideration by the second quarter of this year. Coun. Margaret Johnston said she hopes the findings of the report will be shared with other municipalities.

"I know this will be specific in terms of what areas we identify, but maybe the information that comes from studying thisis something that can be shared," she said.

Coun. Jason Deneaultsaid the city needs to explore any available option to build affordable housing.

"We owe it to ourselves, but more importantly we owe it to our community. We owe it to the people who don't have homes and can't afford homesto find any solution, any interim solution, to provide people with a home," he said.

The idea of building affordable housing over surface parking lots was originally tabled in Cambridge by Coun. Scott Hamilton in December, but that motion failed to pass.

Regional Coun. Pam Wolf, who represents Cambridge,is expected to bring forward a noticemotion to the meeting on Wednesday asking staff to look into regionally ownedparking lots, vacant properties and buildings that could be re-purposed for housingthrough redevelopment.

Her motion will askstaff toprovide a report to council with possiblelocations and lands, as well asbuilding ownership optionsand construction concepts that could includepotential partners.