Fredericton to miss affordable housing target as council defers decision on new street

The City of Fredericton willmiss a self-imposed target forcreating affordable housing after councildelayed a decision to spend $1million to create a new street.

The city was supposed to create thenewstreet at the north end of Cliffe Street this year, but the original funding source for that plan has fallen through, said Jane Blakely, the city's director of legal services, speaking to councillors during a special council meeting Wednesday.

Blakely said the city had expected to sell an eight-hectarepiece of land to the Fredericton Christian Academy for $1.1 million, and use the proceedsto build the road and extend water and sewer services to the property.

The plan was for the private school's campus to be builton the southside of the new road, while the city would sell off two moreproperties on the north side to be used as affordable housing.

However, theschool hasput off the deal, and councillorshave opted to defer a decision on whether to go ahead with the new roadwithout the sale.

"It's absolutely not the model that was presented to the council or subsequently discussed through the public process, and that's what I have concernswith," said Coun. Steven Hicks, moments before introducing a motion to postpone the decision indefinitely.

"And I'd argue we wouldn't even be entertaining this decision had the land sale involving [Fredericton Christian Academy]not been brought forward. We tried to piggyback on an opportunity and that's good planning, however, that has all changed."

Hicks also noted that a plan by staff to also build a roundabout at the intersection of the new street and CliffeStreet could push the cost to the city up to $2.5 million.

Councillor questions housing plan

Hicks said he supports more affordable housing in the city, but said the plan by the city to provide landfor that purpose lacksdetail.

"The initial land sale is not going through due to extremely high inflationary costs. Are these not the same cost the city would incur trying to develop an affordable housing project?

"Will we not be in direct competition with other developers for limited resources and lack of skilled labour that we already have trying to meet the housing demand?"

Hicks added there are already hundreds of apartment units under construction across the city, and that applications totalling about 2,500 units are expected to come before council in the coming months.

CBC News asked for an interview with the Fredericton Christian Academy about why it's no longer purchasing the land.

In an email to CBC News, Jonathan McAloon, head of schools for FCA, said the institution has not made a final decision yet on the property, but is putting it on hold as they "gather more information."

Missing affordable housing objective

Blakely said the construction of the new road is crucial to the city meeting one of its objectivesset out in its 2023 implementation plan for its affordable housing strategy.

Theobjective was for the city to provide two vacant properties to be used to build affordable housing.

Blakely said three plots in the area of the proposed road would yield 111 units.

She said under the affordable housing strategy, the city would put out requests for "expressions of interest" from potential developers, which would beoverseen by planning director Ken Forrest, and housing co-ordinator Janet Flowers.

One of the two propertiescan already be accessed directly from Cliffe Street, but the second would require the new road, she said.

"In order to get the work done this fall, it basically needs to start a week ago, but tomorrow would be almost as good and hopefully this weather holds up," Blakely said.

"So thevendor has agreed to wait until a decision is made today and we'll honour the price that was in the tender, but obviously this is kind of the last Hail Maryopportunity to have that work done this fall."

Councillorsultimately voted to postpone the decision, putting the project on hold indefinitely.

Speaking before the voteto table the motion, Deputy Mayor Greg Ericson said doing so would "collapse" the tender as well, meaning if the city were to pursue the project again it would incur expenses it would have saved if council approved the project onWednesday.

In a follow-up email, Ericson said the vote to table the motion was in effect the same as voting against the proposal.

"Typically, a motion to table allows an issue to persist until it is taken off the table, but in this case the tender associated with the motion expired at the end of business on that same day," Ericson said, in the email.