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In support for supportive housing rezoning with reservations

Just move that little blue box off the park and onto the yawningly large and empty parking lot. Everyone is happy! :)

A letter to CoW councillors, riffing off a Right to Housing Coalition letter campaign:

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/in-support-of-supportive-housing-rezoning

on this proposal:

https://www.winnipeg.ca/building-development/housing/housing-accelerator-fund/city-sites-supportive-housing 

Why do we make parks fight with housing while parking lots get a free pass?

There's a lot of horrific “not in my backyard” rhetoric about the proposed supportive housing sites, so I am writing to support supportive housing. Yes, I support rezoning of City-owned properties to support the construction of supportive housing.

I also strongly support the sale or long-term lease of these properties to non-profit housing providers at nominal rates. The City has a key role to play in addressing the housing needs of Winnipeg residents and this is an important way to support to our neighbours who face barriers in accessing housing they can afford.

Housing **with on-site support for residents** helps people maintain their housing, increasing the health, safety, and wellbeing of our community as whole.

Generally, I urge you to support the Rezoning for Supportive Housing.

However, I’ve got one caveat about the Sherburn site. It’s a great neighbourhood to choose: close to Downtown; easy access to bus routes to travel around the city, a nice neighbourhood feel where real humans walk around and greet each other. This is perfect for one one-lot sized supportive housing location.

Except you’re trying to put it on an existing park. A park that is part of what makes this such a great location. A park that is good for humans, just like housing is good for humans.

Why would we pit housing against a park when literally across the back alley is almost a block-worth of parking lot that is never ever full? Wasted space in the heart of the city. Space taken away from human flourishing so that a few privileged individuals can have the convenience of storing their excessively large, most-wasteful-form-of-transportation machines for hours at a time between usages of mere minutes.

Instead of fighting the public with their variety of reasons why they don't want this project built on this spot on Sherburn (some reasonable, some exaggerated fears, some downright discriminatory and unkind), why not put your “fight” energy into negotiating appropriation of parking lot space on which to place to crucially needed supportive housing (so it doesn't take away also much needed park space)?

There’s two parking lots in question, one belonging to Kingdom Hall and one belonging to a First Nation. At peak times, each of these lots may be full. But those peak times are limited and – importantly – they don’t overlap with each other. It would likely only require removing 4-6 spaces to place the housing project on this vacant land on Garfield/Wolever instead of the highly valued park land on Sherburn.

Why not help the church and the nation broker a sharing agreement where the church can demarcate specific hours when they have priority use of their lot (during the church services, regular church meetings, etc.), and the rest of the week, overflow from the other lot is allowed. And vice versa: should the church lot fill up, they can park in the other lot. And while all this negotiation is going on, the parking for the supportive housing unit can also work out an agreement with the two lots to ensure the spaces needed are available without encroaching on the neighbours’ needs. 

With this strategy, everyone wins: 
--> the neighbourhood keeps its park
--> supportive housing is built in a core city neighbourhood
--> neighbouring property owners with overlapping usage learn to collaborate and share resources.

Please don't make Winnipeggers choose between two goods (housing, green space) when a wasteful drain-on-resources utilitarian land use (parking lot) gets more space than is warranted.

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