Today, community leaders, Mojdeh Azad and Paul Hubert are joining me to talk about the Mayor’s “Home Ownership Incentive Plan”. He called it his “Big Announcement” at the London Chamber of Commerce State of the City Address held back in January. He used what are called, “Strong Mayor’s Powers” to direct staff to develop the plan quickly and, since that time, the idea has received a bit of a rough ride from many of London’s other 14 members of council. It left a lot of us wondering, what might happen next. The Back Story: In January, the mayor used his strong mayor powers to direct staff to develop, what he calls, an “Affordable Home Ownership Incentive Plan”. Essentially, and it’s more complicated than this, the plan could provide approximately 260 individuals and families, who purchase a newly built home within a certain time frame, with the equivalent of a Twenty to just over Fifty Thousand Dollar rebate depending on the size of the home - think of a small apartment all the way up to a single family home, all sold for less than $630,000, which is considered at or below the average for homes sold in London these days. What does this Twenty to Fifty Thousand Dollar rebate represent? Development Charges or DC’s. These are the fees developers normally pay to cover the capital costs associated with the cost of a growing city. Think things like Water, Waste Water, Roads, Parks, Transit, Emergency Services, Libraries and more. These Development Charges are then typically included in the purchase price of new builds, so existing rate payers don’t subsidise growth. In other words, growth pays for growth. Now, how would this incentive work? The mayor’s original plan suggested that council use city funds, sourced from a Federal Government Grant, to provide 60% of this discount and developers would then incorporate and deduct the remaining 40% of these costs at the time of sale. The City would front a total of $5 million dollars for its share. And keep in mind, this is one time funding, so once the money is gone, it’s gone. That was the original idea. Back in February, councillors had a lot of questions when this program came forward for their review. After a long debate, they sent those questions and the whole program back to staff for additional information. About a week ago, they got those answers at their committee of the whole and then, largely at the mayor’s request, they sent the plan back a second time - this time looking for even more options to consider. Council will likely get their second round of questions answered, as well as a new series of options to consider, near the tail end of April. These options will include the original plan, some potential changes related to how and when the rebate would be applied, as well as a potential granting program provided as a mechanism to incentives residents adding an additional rental unit to their home - think basement apartment for example. So - where does all of this go? We’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, we are joined today by Mojdeh Azad, an award winning consultant, conveyor and facilitator and Paul Hubert, Chief Executive officer of Pathways and founder of Delta Leadership Consulting, here to help us make sense of what’s going on - and what might be coming in the weeks and months ahead.
