Encore: Political Panel re: the Mayor's Proposed Home Ownership Incentive Plan

Tomorrow, The mayor’s “Home Ownership Incentive Plan” that he announced at the London Chamber of Commerce State of the City address this past January is coming back to the council’s Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee, that’s council’s Committee of the Whole for a second kick at the can. The recommendation received a bit of a rough ride and a referral back to staff back in February, so we’ll have to stay tuned to see what happens next. Today’s episode is a portion of the podcast political panel that ran shortly after the chamber of commerce’ state of the city address was held back in January. During the mayor’s address, he announced that he had used his strong mayor powers to direct staff to develop, what he called, an Affordable Home Ownership Incentive Plan. Essentially the plan would incentivize purchases of some newly built homes in London by reimbursing or rebating home buyers' the cost of development charges for homes selling for at or below the average cost of a new home - which, these, days is $630,000. Depending on the build, development charges can run between $20,000 for a small apartment to just over $50,000 for a Single Family Home. These charges pay for the capital costs incurred and associated with the cost of a growing city. Think things like Water, Waste Water, Roads, Parks, Transit, and Emergency Services. Developers incorporate these costs into the price of a new home, so the incentive program being considered by council would reduce the overall cost of a new home purchase, until the one time funding source is exhausted. 60% of this rebate, $5 million dollars, would be paid for by city coffers - using funding from the Federal Government’s housing accelerator budget and the remaining 40%, approximately $3 million dollars, would be covered by the home building industry here in London by way of reducing the selling price. This is one time funding, so once the money is gone, it’s gone. Staff predict that about 260 new home sales could be supported before the funding source has been exhausted. Back in February, councillors had a lot of questions when this came forward, for their review. They sent those questions and the whole program back to staff for additional information. Tomorrow, Tuesday March 24th, the answer to those questions will be presented by staff again, for council’s consideration and possible direction. Will the incentive program, in whatever form, be approved tomorrow? We’ll have to stay tuned. In the meantime, this encore edition of a portion of this show’s first ever political panel can give you a better sense of the overall program and an idea of what the panelists thought of it at the time.