At their meeting Tuesday, Tantramar council rejected a request to apply for federal infrastructure funding in support of a non-profit, 63-unit housing development planned for Fairfield Road, despite the fact that a staff report on the issue noted a lack of information.
Freshwinds Eco-Village Housing Co-operative co-chair Sabine Dietz said she was surprised and disappointed at the decision, and says the rejection could jeopardise the prospects for the project.
“Essentially what happened tonight is an expression of, no, we’re not supporting Freshwinds,” said Dietz. “If we can’t show that support at the municipal level… it has the risk of putting a lot more hurdles in our way than necessary.”
Dietz says the Freshwinds team will continue to seek out ways to fund their project, including requesting a meeting with town staff to try and correct what she calls misinformation shared during the 20 minute council discussion of the issue on Tuesday.
Dietz says that Freshwinds had already applied directly to the federal government’s Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund (CHIF) to support the laying of infrastructure on its Fairfield Road property. But an estimated $2.4 million in water, sewer and road work would also be needed on municipal property to connect to the new development. That’s why Freshwinds was asking Tantramar to apply to CHIF’s provincial stream, managed by the New Brunswick Regional Development Corporation (RDC). If approved, the CHIF would have covered about 83% of the infrastructure cost, amounting to about $2 million.
Dietz said the municipality’s refusal to apply will put the co-op’s own application at risk. “I can tell you right away,” said Dietz Tuesday, “we will not get access to that funding if the municipality doesn’t do the other part.” She said it’s unlikely that the $2.4 million cost can be absorbed by the non-profit housing project.
Housing vs sewage lagoon?
Although their report included no formal recommendation, staff outlined a number of concerns about applying to the CHIF for the Fairfield Road infrastructure. The one that seemed to resonate with most councillors was the possibility that applying to CHIF for $2 million in infrastructure funding now, could affect the municipality’s chances of receiving more significant funding later on, specifically for a major project to bring the Sackville sewage lagoons up to regulation.
But it’s not clear if the CHIF is directed at or big enough to support a project such as the upgrading of Sackville’s sewage lagoons. The CHIF New Brunswick agreement allocates $150 million to the province over the next 10 years. That works out to about $15 million per year in the entire province for “infrastructure priorities that will directly enable new housing supply,” according to the news release.
“It’s not that much,” said Dietz, adding that the CHIF is, “specific funding available that you can only get for the purpose of increasing housing in a community.”
The Sackville sewage lagoon was last estimated to cost at least $9 million, though an accurate estimate won’t be known until an engineering assessment is completed. The tender for that work is expected to go out soon.
Councillors Josh Goguen and Matt Estabrooks both framed their decisions as choices to be made between the $2 million Freshwinds infrastructure project and the much larger sewage lagoon project.
“I feel like if we apply for the funding for the lagoon, we’re going to get more value out of that, versus building up to Freshwinds,” said Goguen. “This funding should be applied for the bigger project that will give us a bigger bang for our buck.”
The lone councillor who spoke in support of pursuing CHIF funding for Freshwinds infrastructure was Councillor Michael Tower.
“I find it hard to say no to this one,” said Tower, who said he expects the municipality won’t be ready to apply for funding for the sewage lagoon project for another one and a half years. By that time, said Tower, “there may be a different grant available to help us even more.”
“I think it’s time that we have to show some leadership and say, let’s help out,” said Tower. “Let’s find a partnership and try to work forward to make some things happen and get this housing crisis under control.”
‘A big surprise’
Dietz says that until Tuesday’s decision, the Freshwinds board had been under the impression that the municipality was supportive of the co-op housing project, which promises to build 63 units in village style design on Fairfield Road with a minimum of 25% allocated for low-income households. Because of the co-op non-market model, the remaining units would start at market cost but then remain affordable over time, as is the case with the Marshwinds Housing Co-op on Main Street.
Dietz said recent activities by council on the housing crisis, and Freshwinds involvement in them, had helped create the impression of support. “We have a mayor’s roundtable on housing, we had meetings, public meetings, the minister’s been here. We’ve met with the minister,” said Dietz. “We’re doing all sorts of innovative things, not just for this community, but for the province. And we know we’re supported provincially.”
“The whole thing is a big surprise, a disappointment, and I wish we had more time to prepare,” said Dietz.
‘We do not have all the information’
The request for a council decision on whether or not to apply to CHIF in support of Freshwinds skipped a step in council’s usual process.
Normally council decisions are presented at Committee of the Whole meetings for open discussion, and from there can move on to regular council meetings for a request for decision. But this time, the staff report on CHIF and Freshwinds went straight to a regular council meeting. Dietz says she found out about the request coming forward on the Friday before the Tuesday meeting.
CAO Jennifer Borne says via email that Freshwinds had “urgency on their end for a response in order to advance their project.” Dietz says that Freshwinds had not attached a deadline to their requests, except for a request asking for a letter of support to their own funding application, which was not granted.
Sending the request along the usual Committee of the Whole route would have delayed the decision just over one month, to council’s regular meeting on May 13. Instead, the staff report went directly to the April 8 meeting, despite missing relevant information, according to Borne.
“I will clearly say that we do not have all the information at the present time,” Borne told council on Tuesday. “We are still working through this.” Tantramar staff were due to attend an online training session on the CHIF on Wednesday, and Borne said even then she did not expect “to get all of the information that we need for CHIF applications in a one hour presentation.”
Borne told councillors there was “a lot of work still to be done, working with the RDC to gather more information, even for our own municipal application.”
“One of my big concerns with this is that it all it feels like it’s happening really fast,” said Councillor Allison Butcher. “I feel like we need to have all of the information before we make a decision, and making a decision now, before our staff has even had training on how it will all roll out, feels a little irresponsible.”
In his comments, Mayor Andrew Black also cited a number of outstanding questions about how New Brunswick’s $150 million share of the CHIF would be distributed over the program’s 10-year period.
But neither Black nor Butcher moved to defer the decision at hand, and after his comments, Black said he would be supporting the option to reject the idea altogether.
In the end, Black and councillors Bruce Phinney, Greg Martin, Allison Butcher, Barry Hicks, Josh Goguen and Deputy Mayor Matt Estrabrooks all voted in favour of a motion to “decline the request to partner on a CHIF funding application between the municipality and Freshwinds Eco-village Housing Co-operative.”
Councillor Michael Tower was the lone nay vote, and Councillor Debbie Wiggins Colwell was absent for the meeting.
After the meeting, CHMA asked Mayor Black if the decision meant that the door was closed on municipal support for the Freshwinds project, and Black said, “I think that’s arguable.”
“There’s never a door that is entirely closed,” said Dietz in response to the same question. “I’m really hoping we can meet after staff has had their chance to discuss, and bring this back up on the table. This needs to come back up on the table.”
