Nordic solutions for Hamilton housing

Maybe Hamiltonians should be learning to say “skol” this spring.

Thanks to five Nordic countries, the city is getting an estimated $170,000 worth of free expert advice on its social housing challenges.

In May, more than a dozen delegates from several Nordic countries will arrive to take part in a two-day workshop intended to bring new ideas to Hamilton’s growing focus on affordable and sustainable housing.

The event is funded by a group of Nordic organizations and an arm of the governments of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland that promotes Nordic solutions to urban development issues.

Glen Norton, Hamilton’s director of economic development, hopes the project fires up local housing stakeholders with ideas to help improve the existing affordable housing stock and break the backlog of some 6,300 people on the wait list.

“We have to figure out a way to get more done, to get ahead of the growing list, and I think this event will be one of the initiatives that we need to do,” Norton said.

“I would love as an outcome that we sort of step up the pace that we get affordable housing built in the city.”

Why did the Nordics choose Hamilton?

According to urban planner Pamela Tiller, who works for the Royal Danish Consulate in Toronto, Hamilton sprang to mind as a result of media coverage of last year’s “Hamilton Consulate” in Toronto, part of a GTA marketing blitz by the city’s ec-dev department, and a splashy article on the city in Toronto Life magazine.

Tiller, whose job is to promote Danish urbanism abroad, says Hamilton jumped out as an agile, innovative city hungry for change and open to outside solutions to urban problems.

She reached out to Norton, they kicked around event ideas and eventually landed on affordable housing, a subject near and dear to the heart of city council, which last year committed $50 million to a 10-year plan to tackle Hamilton’s lagging and deteriorating housing stock.

Tiller was working with Sebastian Damm Wray, a manager with Quercus Group, a Copenhagen-based consultant firm specializing in sustainable transformations, who is now co-ordinating the Hamilton event. Wray tapped into a Nordic governments’ grant and is gathering the consortium which will analyze Hamilton’s issues, develop ideas and showcase Nordic best practices and products.

Contacted by telephone, Wray says participants will include housing experts, officials from Nordic cities which have transitioned from postindustrial economies and reps from a dozen or so companies.

There’s no question there’s a trade mission element to the event. That’s partially why the Nordic governments are helping fund the workshops.

But Wray says the project goes well beyond trying to sell products. He says the companies will dig into local issues and collaborate with Hamilton participants to find solutions to specific problems, including “deep retrofitting” of existing housing units.

“It’s also bringing experience from cities who’ve been able to transition from very heavy industrial cities in the 20th century to more knowledgebased and greener economies today.”

Norton has already met with local social housing advocates, stakeholders and educators who are spreading the word. Wray says the event will be open to the general public and community groups.

Other than staff time, providing a conference venue and catering a meal, the event requires no financial contribution from the city.

“I think we’re going to have a very well attended two-day session,” said Norton. “I think Hamilton is the perfect fit for this, quite frankly.”

The timing is particularly good because, as Norton notes, rising house prices make the availability of sustainable and affordable housing even more crucial for a city in transition. Although Hamilton has had a good run in terms of revitalization, its starting to see a backlash over what some see as “gentrification” and the displacement of low income dwellers. Whether the displacement is real is debatable. The fear isn’t.

Norton doesn’t for a moment believe the Nordic initiative will be a silver bullet. But he does hope it will form a piece of a very complex housing puzzle.