Seniors Housing – county wants to build

Jeff Green | Feb 09, 2012

As part of its Integrated Sustainability Initiative, Frontenac County has commissioned the same consultants who prepared the social housing strategy for the City of Kingston to complete a Seniors Community Housing pilot project study for the county.

Ed Starr from SHS Consulting and Ken Foulds from Re/Fact Consulting are using 2006 census data, as well as data they collected working on the Kingston project (which had a rural component) along with information from a population study Frontenac County completed last April, as the basis for a more focused project this time around.

This initiative is about identifying the kinds of projects that would be of greatest benefit to residents, have the best chance of being built, and what it would take to bring them about.

To that end, meetings were held with stakeholder groups at the county offices in Glenburnie and in Sharbot Lake last week, and public meetings are going to be taking place at up to 8 locations throughout Frontenac County in mid to late March.

In the presentations at the start of the meeting, Foulds and Starr laid out the statistical background for the county.

The full time population in Frontenac County has increased substantially over the last 15 years, from 23,760 in 1996 to 28,100 in 2010, an 18.3% increase. The bulk of that increase has been in South Frontenac. Of the 4340 new residents, 3600 are located in South Frontenac, which has seen a 23% population increase as compared to 13% in North Frontenac, 6% in Central Frontenac and 20% in Frontenac Islands.

(This information will be updated this week when the population and dwelling results from the 2011 census are released)

Other factors that are being taken into account include a projection that in Kingston and Frontenac County the proportion of seniors over 75 years old will double over the next 25 years, to 15% of the population. As well, the average income of senior households in Frontenac County is lower than it is for Kingston and the province as a whole, although only 11% of seniors in Frontenac County spend over 30% of their income on shelter,

Another issue that the consultants have made note of is the housing stock in the county, which has been and is expected to continue to be made up almost exclusively (well over 90%) of single detached homes. And in contradiction to the stated goals of township Official Plans, residential development is expected to continue to be taking place on rural and waterfront lots, outside of the county’s hamlets, where the plans say development is to be focused.

All of these factors led the consultants to conclude that seniors in Frontenac County are going to need more supports going forward if they are going to stay in their own homes, and that the forms of housing being built are not consistent with the particular needs of the seniors living in the county. Finances are also a limiting factor when seniors are making housing choices, and there is a need for more affordable housing options so seniors will be able to remain in their own communities.

John McDougall is a member of Frontenac County Council from the Verona area, and he has taken on the portfolio for housing and social housing. This has meant working closely with the housing department of the City of Kingston, which manages housing services for Frontenac County as well.

The housing initiative that is now underway involves the county directly in the development of new housing projects for the first time.

“The goal of this exercise is to come up with a spectrum of solutions that will inform our planning for years, and to identify a pilot project that we can try to bring about in the short term,” said McDougall.

One problem that will have to be addressed will be that of finances, because particularly in the case of social housing, projects only get built when federal or provincial money is available.

(Further information about public meetings will be available later this month)