Homeowners can get grant to add apartment units

St. Catharines will provide a onetime grant of up to $20,000 to homeowners who create apartment units in their homes in an effort to increase the city’s affordable housing stock.

But the idea, passed Monday night in a tight 6-5 vote, had city councillors split over who they think will actually benefit from the incentive — landlords or people who need housing.

St. Andrew’s Coun. Joe Kushner said many owners of small bungalows in his south St. Catharines ward have created accessory units

and are renting rooms to students.

“I don’t understand, given their financial incentive to do so and they’re already doing it, why we have to discuss giving them some type of grant up to $20,000,” Kushner said.

He said if it costs someone $20,000 to convert their basement into an apartment and they charge at least $1,000 a month in rent, they’ll make more than half back in just a year.

“The payback period is very, very short, so I don’t understand the logic of having an incentive.”

But St. Patrick’s Coun. Karrie Porter said the grants will be used by multi-generational families and the incentive makes sense.

“Not everybody has the same means, comes with the same sort of capital and inheritances, and there are a lot of families

who are now having to move in together,” she said.

Porter said her family could have benefited from the grant when she and her brothers were starting out and didn’t have the means and capital to create an accessory dwelling unit for their parents. Their parents ended up moving 2,000 kilometres away to be able to afford to live comfortably in retirement.

Fellow ward Coun. Robin Mcpherson agreed the program is not for rental units only, saying people are trying to take care of their parents and adult children are moving back home.

“It seems like a no-brainer to me to kind of encourage that,” she said, adding people aren’t necessarily renting out those units to family members so the construction is an out-of-pocket expense.

St. Catharines senior project manager Bruce Bellows said the intent of the accessory dwelling unit program is to provide more affordable and attainable housing in the city.

He said the city is trying to provide a balance of housing opportunities for everybody.

The program provides a onetime grant to help offset eligible project costs for the construction of interior or exterior accessory dwelling units in singles, semis or townhouses. That includes creating an apartment inside an existing house or with an addition.

The home must be five years old or older.

It’s also available to help with the costs of building an exterior apartment within an existing or new detached accessory structure or adding a prefabricated unit to the property subject to zoning approvals.

If an applicant completes the project successfully, they could receive a grant of up to 70 per cent of the eligible project costs incurred, to a maximum of $20,000.

St. George’s Coun. Kevin Townsend questioned Monday how the city could ensure the accessory dwelling units are affordable.

He said he was concerned the average rent for a basement apartment in St. Catharines is about $1,800 to $2,000 a month.

Bellows said accessory dwelling units are intended to accommodate one or two people or a very small family.

“We can’t necessary control who charges what through the rent, but we can control the function and size of the unit and that’s important in controlling the market rent that people will pay for those units,” Bellows said.

Council was told the city budgeted for four to five accessory dwelling unit grant approvals a year.

“We’re talking about a pretty small amount of money going to local residents that I think is going to add a lot of needed units,” said Merritton Coun. Greg Miller, adding in some cases the creation of a unit won’t be about making income but “family harmony.”