Housing agency asks city to cede control

Going it alone would allow agency to borrow for $468-million plan

City staff have a new plan to build 1,100 new affordable and market-rent apartments, plus fix up a further 300 units of rent-geared-to-income housing.

But the plan would involve major change for the city’s social housing provider, Peterborough Housing Corporation (PHC) — and PHC isn’t happy about it.

At a committee meeting on Tuesday, city councillors will hear about it.

For 20 years, PHC has been the largest social housing provider in Peterborough city and county, with 910 rent-gearedto-income units, plus 287 affordable apartment and 85 further affordable apartments under construction.

The city is the sole shareholder of PHC.

Together, the city and PHC face the challenge of trying to meet a need for 2,000 new affordable apartments by 2029.

Although PHC could apply for financing from federal programs to start building, according to a new city staff report, there’s a catch: PHC’s financial statements are consolidated with the city’s, so any debt taken on by PHC draws on the city’s debt capacity.

And since the city can only take on so much debt, PHC is limited in its borrowing.

To get around that, states the report, PHC has proposed that it become a new, standalone non-profit.

That new non-profit would build 1,100 affordable and market-rent apartments, PHC proposes, plus fix up more than 300 aging units of rent-gearedto-income housing, at a cost of

$468 million.

The financing would come from the National Housing Strategy, PHC proposes; that would likely cover 70 per cent of the cost (or $327 million).

Although the plan would erase $43.2 million in PHC debt the city currently has on its books — and leave PHC to take on further debt on its own — city staff does not recommend it.

That’s because the city would have to relinquish control over the non-profit’s activities — meaning no more veto over the number of affordable apartments to build, for example, or the level of debt taken on.

While the city would hold an operating agreement with the new non-profit, states the report, that agreement would eventually expire — and the non-profit could then potentially decide to start charging market rent for its apartments.

Or if the non-profit were to fail, the report adds, then the debt would return to the city.

Instead, city staff report recommends the creation a new corporate entity — over which the city would retain control, as sole shareholder — to build and run the city’s affordable apartments, leaving PHC with only social housing.

But it wouldn’t happen overnight and it wouldn’t be free.

The creation of that new corporate entity would take 18 months, states the report, and the city would have to pay $300,000 to set it up, plus an additional $250,000 in administrative costs to apply for federal Housing Strategy money late in 2022.

Darlene Cook, the CEO of PHC, doesn’t like it: she said she hopes councillors will prefer the non-profit idea proposed by agency.

If converted into a non-profit, Cook says, PHC could apply for federal financing “immediately” — not in 18 months — and save the city $550,000 to set up a new corporation and apply for money.

Furthermore she said PHC is already “nimble” and able to deliver fast: “We don’t get bogged down with bureaucracy — we just get the job done.”

Meanwhile Women and Gender Equity Minister Maryam Monsef, the MP for Peterborough-Kawartha who promised to help build affordable apartments in the last election, said Thursday she wants to see those 1,400 homes built soon.

“I know the Peterborough housing project has been in the works for some time,” Monsef said.

“It’s good to see it booming: I’ll continue to do my part so that we build as many housing units, as quickly as possible.”