The City of Fredericton did not meet its 2023 goal to provide city owned land for affordable housing.
The goal included issuing two proposal calls for affordable housing projects and securing 20 properties for development in 2023. The target was set out in the city’s 2023 implementation plan in response to their affordable housing strategy. Councillors accepted the plan in October 2022.
“It wasn’t so much we didn’t meet our goal,” Mayor Kate Rogers said. “It was when you looked at the strategy, the areas where we excelled… That was one area where we need to make improvement.”
But at the Dec. 19 Economic Vitality meeting, affordable housing development specialist Janet Flowers said the goal was incomplete.
Some councillors at the meeting voiced their concerns about the city’s response to affordable housing.
“Consistently, this council, at the point of the rezoning, have turned their backs on some of the most vulnerable, precariously housed and under-housed folks in Fredericton, and to me that’s very disappointing,” Councillor Ruth Breen said after Flowers’ presentation.
During her presentation, Flowers said the city provided discounted land to Habitat for Humanity and the John Howard Society. The city did not issue any proposal calls for affordable housing, but Flowers noted that it received a number of proposals during the year.
Housing proposal turned down
On Dec. 11, the city rejected a proposal to turn undeveloped park land into an 88-unit development after nearby residents spoke out. One resident was willing to buy the land to keep it as a park.
The property would have provided 26 units that developers said would be affordable based on Fredericton’s median after-tax income.
In November, council approved a rezoning proposal for a development to build about 870 units, in spite of dozens of letters and a petition in opposition to the development that had 100 signatures.
In an interview, University of New Brunswick sociology professor Julia Woodhall-Melnik said councillors need to show residents how they can benefit from affordable housing.
“I would focus on the community thriving, not the negative rhetoric that tends to go with affordable housing,” said Woodhall-Melnik, who is also the founder and co-director of the university’s Housing, Mobilization, Engagement and Resiliency Lab.
Councillors “need to grapple” with competing needs
But she also recognized that councillors have to deal with a tension as they work towards affordable housing.
“Councillors will need to grapple with the discomfort of meeting the needs of the citizens who need it the most and weighing the needs of the folks who are paying property taxes and who call them up and complain,” she said.
Rogers said the city has addressed the problem. The city ran affordable housing workshops during the fall, and part of the city’s 2024 plan will be continuing to educate the public.
“When they have concerns, instead of always just giving into the concerns, instead explaining why those changes are necessary, hear what the residents say and then make those changes as acceptable to everyone who lives in the city as possible,” she said.
The 2024 budget includes a $500,000 commitment per year for the next four years to buy land for affordable housing.
“That’s why you do this, you look over the last year, say ‘What went really well, what needs some work,” Rogers said.
