Winnipeg councillors debate housing measures around shopping malls

Winnipeggers could start seeing housing popping up around shopping malls around the city.

Councillors gathered on Tuesday to debate a package of zoning changes meant to turn parking lots and strip malls into housing.

The changes could lead to more projects like those previouslyannounced around Polo Park and the North Gate shopping centre.

The city's plan targets the areas around major shopping malls and streets with high levels of commercial activity. The zoning changes would allow developers to build housing in these areas without the need for a public hearing.

It's part of a series of zoning changes the city agreed to make in exchange for more than $120 million in federal housing money.

The city expects all of the zoning changes to lead to 14,000 units built over the next three years.

The hearing at city hall lasted until after midnight, when councillors adjourned. The hearingwill resume on Thursday, when council has its regularly scheduled meeting.

Questions from council

Some council members, like Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt, questioned how much of that housing would be affordable.

"What makes you think that today, by us rezoning this land, that it will not do the exact same and the same pattern that we've had with the industry, driving prices up?" Wyatt asked property, planning and development director Hazel Borys.

She said there is pent-up demand for walkable urban spaces, and prices will decrease as more housing gets built.

"Once you [level]the playing field and don't require each developer to go through a public hearing process, but instead allow as-of-right complete communities, those prices start to [level] and come down," Borys said.

A map of the affected areas shows potential development sites across the city, around malls like St. Vital Centre, Unicity and Kildonan Place, as well as commercial corridors like Selkirk Avenue, Portage Avenueand Pembina Highway.

Mynarski Coun. Ross Eadie asked how the plans would impact inner-city streets like Selkirk and north Main Street.

"Did anybody really look at the possibilities for our streets that are really suffering?" he said.

Borys replied that the city's rezoning effort was not a "holistic planning effort," but from her experience over 21 years of doing similar work around the world, "this sort of zoning upgrade has always sparked a significant economic outcome."

St. Vital Coun. Brian Mayes pointed out that while Winnipeg remains an affordable city for many people, compared to other cities in Canada, there is a lack of affordable housing. Borys agreed, and said the affordability issue was driven by a lack of supply.

"The purpose-built rental market only has a 1.8 per cent vacancy, which is one of the lowest vacancy rates in Canada, and then the lowest tranche of that only has a oneper cent vacancy," Borys said.

"So the affordable housing crisis in Winnipeg is for the lowest wage earners not at all the highest wage earners."

This is the first of two major rezoning hearings council is holding related to the Housing Accelerator Fund.

Another hearing on allowing as-of-right construction of four units per lot, and up to four storeys near frequent transit routes, is expected in March.