North Grenville lacks affordable rental housing, and Mayor Nancy Peckford wants to change that.
MyKemptvilleNow.com spoke with Peckford to learn about the steps the municipality is taking to address the housing crisis. She says the lack of rentals inflates the prices of those that are available.
“North Grenville, historically, has had a fairly low rental stock,” she said. “It’s largely been private homeowners who might have a granny suite or a basement apartment, or what have you, and that really is much of what North Grenville has had, in terms of rental units.”
Peckford said expanding the availability of rental units has been one of her top priorities since she was first elected in 2018.
She cited examples like the Court House Apartment complex and the work-in-progress New Commons development as steps her team is taking towards that goal.
She also said there are more projects in the works, but they’re in extremely early development right now.
“Progress can feel really slow, even when you’re really hard, because all of these projects are still at the concept-for-development stage, so they’re not ready or available on the market yet,” Peckford said, “but we’re looking forward to them getting there very soon.”
If you have ideas for how to improve the local housing market, you can bring them to the Housing Advisory Committee. You can read more about that group on the municipality’s website.
