Brockton is doing a housing needs assessment to see what kind of development would be most useful to the community.
The municipality includes Walkerton, Brant, Greenock, and villages such as Chepstow and Cargill.
CAO Sonya Watson tells Bayshore Broadcasting News, the housing needs assessment will become a report that will help guide development, explaining, “It will be available to developers, to interested parties that are looking to develop in Brockton and it will help guide our own future plans related to land development.”
Brockton is using $20,000 in grant money from Bruce Power to hire consultant J.L. Richards to complete the work.
In a staff report to council Tuesday, Watson explains the assessment will look at what types of housing exist in the community and what types of housing are needed, then identify gaps in the housing supply. It will look at demographics, growth projections and available land.
The housing needs assessment will be done alongside an Official Plan / Zoning bylaw review, with public input being gathered simultaneously as meetings on the official plan are held.
Official plans are required by the Planning Act. They deal with how land in a particular municipality is used. They can designate lands for types of development at varying levels of density, or protect some lands from development. It is a guide for how the municipality might grow and where infrastructure is built.
Brockton is reviewing its plan to incorporate new policy direction after recent changes to provincial legislation and to align with the Bruce County Official Plan.
Watson says work on the official plan will extend into 2026, but the housing needs assessment is expected to be done by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the municipality was also successful in obtaining Housing Accelerator Fund grant money up to $3.4 million from the federal government over the span of three years.
Watson says, “We’re using it for a number of initiatives, but it can be used for infrastructure as well, to create housing. We’re using it for our official plan review that’s underway right now, we will be using it for the development of a key property in Walkerton that will be slated for housing in the East Ridge business park.”
On its website, Brockton says it’s long identified a need for more housing in the community, and the Housing Accelerator Fund support will help them address that.
Brockton is looking at a number of ways to increase housing stock. It lists some things it’s either doing already or open to doing including looking at more housing types that serve vulnerable populations and partnering with non-profit housing providers to increase affordable housing. Possibly reducing parking requirements or increasing the allowed density on a single lot. They’d also consider incentives like density bonusing to encourage affordable housing and conversions from non-residential to residential, and disincentives to discourage unused units, as well as disposing of municipally owned land so it can be available for affordable housing.
