The County has secured legal consultation regarding the Gibbons Street project in order to come up with a plan on how to move forward with either building or delaying the project.
The Gibbons Street development is planned to be a 39-unit apartment building with supported housing units and affordable housing units being built in Goderich, on the former site of Victoria Public School.
The County Council was looking to delay the project, but first needed to get legal advice to ensure they had not already made legally binding commitments that greenlit the building project.
After a closed-to-the-public meeting, council was able to discuss the importance of the project.
Ultimately, with a recorded vote of 9-6 in favour of moving forward with the Gibbons Street project, the construction is now being categorized as ‘shovel-ready’.
This means that the project will move forward, even without the promise of funding from the provincial or federal governments.
The councillors who voted against classifying the project as shovel-ready did so because they didn’t feel it fair to move forward with the county being on the hook for the full $20.5 million cost.
Councillors who voted in favour of the project moving forward agreed that although external funding was not yet secured, the project was necessary because of the need for moving people in the county out of homelessness, and providing them with the necessary resources to be able to land on their feet.
CAO Meighan Wark also advised that although the Exeter project was greenlit as shovel-ready, it was not planned to have the supported housing units that the Gibbons Street project will have.