Huntsville General Committee receives Land Trust update for a potential 179 new homes

The project hopes to be "shovel ready" in a couple of months

Huntsville General Committee received an update from the Muskoka Community Land Trust (MCLT) for potential new homes, in the June 23, 2025, meeting.

The MCLT advised that their current focus is on preconstruction work, public engagement, evolution and funding.

The preconstruction efforts involve establishing an architectural building and site, traffic considerations, studies, engineering, landscape, costs and contributions.

They said, “We’re giving 179 families a new affordable home.”

So far, they’ve held various events, including community engagement to identify the MCLT and needs., received 15,000 non-advertisement social media engagements within 6 months, have engaged with Indigenous and other community partnerships, and been in contact with the housing minister.

They’ve also created a ‘relations table’ where they are listing names of people in trades.

They indicated that their fundraising efforts reached the most success in the past 6 months, with the largest grant being $340,000 from Fednor.

They said, “Fednor came to us. We didn’t go to them,” because they liked what MCLT is doing, such as supporting affordable green housing, adopting principles geared to project delivery, and are reporting about their actions, which will help create a model for other communities.

Their next step is to begin to look for construction financing, with the hopes they “will be shovel ready in a few months,” they said.

Considering there won’t be a Council meeting in August, they hope to wrap up further details next month so they can move forward with construction aspects.

Mayor, Nancy Alcock, said, “This is really an important project for all of us.”

Deputy Mayor, Dan Armour, inquired about whether their construction phases will involve completing one building first and then move on to the second building.

The MCLT advised that they have changed their development plans to one larger building, versus two, in the first phase.

Upon inquiry about whether they will have enough time to submit the application to the Town given the ongoing studies they are undergoing, they advised they’ve completed majority of the field work and are in the reporting phase. They added that their goal is to have a full package of study reports to the Planning Department by mid-July.

Councillor, Cory Clarke, expressed that although he understands the urge to move forward protections for the Town are important too, so they shouldn’t rush the process.

The MCLT indicated that they are “sensitive to the value of the land donation…and want to protect the Town’s best interests.” They added that the draft list of conditions is to protect the Town’s investment, and that the conveyance of land is a non-repayable mortgage, and they will “meet and honour, or the land goes back to the Town.”

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