Kincardine council received some insight into how the municipality is doing for housing development compared to neighbouring communities.
During Wednesday’s council meeting, council heard a delegation from Jennifer Morley, the president of the OnePoint Association of Realtors and Broker with Royal LePage RCI Realty in Owen Sound.
Morley said that Kincardine is making what she calls strong and commendable progress to allow for increased attainable housing development.
“Namely, our research found that Kincardine has adopted several CMHC best housing practices, including implementing a fully-digital permit system through Cloudpermit, allowing online applications, payments, and inspections,” she said
OnePoint looked at a number of municipalities, including Guelph, Centre Wellington, and Stratford.
She said that these are important policy changes that will help create the conditions for more housing of all types across the municipality.
“OnePoint recommends permitting up to four units on all serviced, residential lots, and enabling small-scale housing forms such as multiplexes and townhomes along key corridors, and within downtown.”
She added that the recommendations that OnePoint shared in their report are closely aligned with the direction that municipal staff are already working toward, through the Housing Action Plan.
In 2024, the Municipality of Kincardine introduced a Community Improvement Plan, providing tax increment-equivalent grants, as well as pre-development study and design grants to support attainable and mixed-use housing.
Kincardine also designated municipal surplus lands for potential housing development under a housing-first, Official Plan policy.