GUELPH – Wellington County staff have been authorized to proceed to the design and tender stage for a new four-unit affordable housing development in Mount Forest.
On May 23 county council approved a recommendation from the social services committee to proceed based on the four-unit option.
A report from housing director Ryan Pettipiere indicates social services staff have been consulting with the county planning department and Grinham Architects for development options at the Wellington Housing Corporation property at 440 King Street in Mount Forest.
Based on direction from the social services committee in March, staff completed further work on refining a four-unit design concept consisting of street townhouses.
“The four-unit option … is more cost effective than the cluster townhouse configuration also presented in March and better fits the existing townhouse complex setting,” Pettipiere notes in the report. “This configuration is further considered to be an ‘as-of-right’ design requiring no zoning amendments and therefore would not be subject to any formal appeal of the development.”
A total of 35 units (three nine-unit buildings and one eight-unit set up) are already located on the property.
Preliminary capital budget estimates for the four-unit option range up to $2 million. However, the report notes this estimate “should be considered a very early rough approximation for reference at this point only.”
