Chatham-Kent council held their second night of budget deliberations in Chatham last night.
A big part of the discussions was on affordable housing. Chatham-Kent puts aside more than a million dollars annually for affordable housing projects, but with inflation increasing construction costs, council approved spending an extra $130,000 to be put into reserves to ensure a Wallaceburg affordable housing project will have money to go ahead in a few years.
The extra money will help deal with construction inflationary pressures to make sure the same number of affordable housing units will be built as was previously planned.
“This (money) could make or break potentially the next funding grant we apply for,” said Chatham-Kent housing services director Ray Harper.
“If we don’t have this funding available to us…it will delay the upcoming Wallaceburg development.”
Councillor Carmen McGregor said the extra $130,000 is a small figure to pay to make sure a housing development won’t be delayed and help build affordable housing in Wallaceburg.
After the dust settled and the night was over, the proposed tax hike increased from 5.58 per cent to 5.61 per cent.
Budget deliberations will continue tonight. Among the things that will be talked about include providing $4.5 million to the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance to pay for a portion of the redevelopment costs for the hospital’s Wallaceburg site.
