Hamilton planning committee moves to require affordable housing along LRT route

Hamilton's planning committee voted unanimously to support inclusionary zoning, which would require developers to include affordable housingalong the city's Light Rail Transit (LRT) route.

The committee will have city staff identify"conceptual locations" for inclusionary zoning in Hamilton's major transit areas and indicate its "intent" to include inclusionary zoning in the city's plan.

That would include the LRT route and current GO stations.

It comes a dayafter members of tenant group ACORN called for the policy.

"ACORN will keep working with our allies to fight for a bold [inclusionary zoning]policy this year!" the group tweeted on Tuesday.

The Hamilton Community Benefits Network and Environment Hamilton also praised the move on Twitter, calling it a great andimportant step in the right direction.

The city could've made this move earlier, but was forced to pause after the Ford government cancelled the LRT before plans were resurrected after Ottawa and Queen's Park agreed to provide$1.7 billion in capital funding respectively.

Jason Thorne, the city's general manager of planning and economic development, said Monday during an LRT sub-committee meetingimplementing this by 2023 is a "fairly aggressive timeline" given it would require an analysis of the rental market and further developing a bylaw.

The sub-committee also received a pair of updates from Abdul Shaikh, the city's LRTdirector, who said major construction on the project is expected to begin in 2024.