CENTRE WELLINGTON – Although a developer is up against a lot trying to build higher than normal in Downtown Fergus, he doesn’t see any other way to reasonably do it.
Dave Gillis has been renting and building units in the Centre Wellington area for years and is looking to add more missing middle housing as he feels it's desperately needed.
He currently has two proposals, a four-storey building in Downtown Elora and a five-storey building in Downtown Fergus. Both are mixed use buildings with ground floor commercial but that's not the issue.
The problem is the land where he wants to build both are zoned for a maximum of three-storeys and therefore he has to go through a lengthy zoning bylaw amendment process.
The bigger problem? This is the only way he sees this project being in any way economically feasible.
In an interview in Downtown Fergus, Gillis said he considers his most recent building — a nine-unit three-storey on St. Patrick Street — to be a well made building with slightly upscale units than would be seen in older buildings. These units are rented at a little over $2,000 per month.
However, he said he is still “under water every month” with this building.
“In the wintertime when I have to pay for the snow removal, I won’t be making money,” Gillis said, noting rising interest rates and inflation are to blame.
Therefore, he’s come to the conclusion he needs to build something with a little "more meat" which means looking up.
Building taller grants the ability to build more units. For example, he said with the five-storey proposal he can get 17 residential units while he would only get around 10 units if he kept it at three storeys.
“Your costs get a little more reduced when you go higher … once you have the land in place you use the volume more like going up, you don’t have to purchase more land,” Gillis said. “It’s cheaper the more units you can put on.”
Although he acknowledged there’s resistance to building higher than is the norm or allowed, he sees this with his own proposal and another five-storey one in Downtown Fergus.
He said the heritage voice is loud but overall he thinks people are quietly supportive as they realize there are few options for young people or retirees who are looking to rent in town.
“I’ve been renting in this community for 18 years and I’ve never had a vacancy,” Gillis said.
In his newest building, the units were already accounted for months before it was even finished and ready for tenants.
Stefan Ilic, who rents in Gillis’ newest building, said he didn’t like the idea of waiting for a rental unit but didn’t feel like he had any option.
“There was no Plan B unless we were willing to go to kind of a downgrade,” Ilic said, referring to older apartment buildings in town.
Ilic, who is originally from Centre Wellington, said there’s a lot of younger people in his situation who aren’t quite ready to own a home but are looking to stay in the area.
“They can’t get into a single-detached you know, we need more variety in the rental side of it,” Ilic said.
Dustin Davis, president of the Guelph and District Association of Realtors, which covers Centre Wellington, said there is a supply and demand issue when it comes to rentals in Fergus or Elora.
Having grown up in Fergus, Davis said he understands the hesitancy to be in favour of taller due to the implications of losing small town character, but ultimately housing should trump all else when it comes to local councils and the public.
“If you’re valuing that against a roof over somebody’s head, you know, that’s a really strange kind of argument to have,” Davis said. “Otherwise, where will people live?”
With the Places to Grow Act dictating a large amount of growth in Centre Wellington — the population is mandated to essentially double in 30 years time — Davis said people will have to accept developments like this are a reality as upper levels of government may start stepping in.
“People are going to have to start being a little bit more open to something like that before they’re faced with something imposed on them, rather than something they have a say in,” Davis said.
Even if there is support from the public or council, it’s a slow process to get these units through the required zoning bylaw amendment process. Gillis said one of his applications is coming up on a year since it's been submitted without a public meeting date set.
“We live in a very busy community and there’s lots of new developments coming in town,” Gillis said as speculation on why it takes so long at the municipal level.
Brett Salmon, township managing director of planning and development, said in an email statement these kinds of applications can be very complex and often involve review of reports and technical studies that could require an external consultant.
Proposing to build outside of the norm in the downtown cores presents another layer of difficulty.
“The downtown cores include numerous buildings with cultural heritage significance, and the downtown cores have also been identified as possible significant cultural heritage landscapes,” Salmon said. “So applications to increase the building height merit careful consideration.”
Salmon said there could be room for a faster process through Bill 109 which delegates some responsibilities to staff.
He said the province has determined a lack of rental options and housing in general to be an issue but couldn’t say if municipalities would agree these measures introduced would help the process or result in more appeals.
Salmon also suggested those looking to build faster could plan to do so if they stayed within the framework of existing zoning but otherwise doesn’t see anything that can single out and expedite rental buildings.
This comes back around to the issue of it not being economical. Gillis noted a three-storey building could be more profitable if he didn’t rent it and sold them as condominiums.
So why not do that?
“I’ve just always been doing it, I don’t know any different, I like meeting people,” Gillis said. “I do have a vision, I think owning these things in 10, 20 years in a community that is going to be growing faster than maybe any other community in Ontario, I’m happy to invest it.”
