Hubert Hogle
Napanee
Last week’s editorial describes the hand-wringing at the County about the lack of affordable housing. Yet, no one seems to have noticed that there is not a single piece of vacant land in Greater Napanee that is zoned for multi-residential housing or even for a boarding house. Even granny suites were outlawed here until the province mandated a change.
Our antiquated zoning by-law essentially freezes all new development of affordable housing. Nothing can happen without a very expensive and time consuming application to our planning consultant in Kingston for a special dispensation.
Our zone map now looks like a piece of Swiss cheese with numerous band-aide fixes that have been done piecemeal over the years. But the underlying problem never gets addressed. Most of our builders have simply given up.
We do indeed have a housing problem. Fixing it requires a fresh approach. We cannot solve today’s problems with yesterday’s thinking.