Hamiltons Horwath to use strong mayor powers to develop housing over Stoney Creek parking lots – Hamilton [Video]

Hamilton’s mayor is set to veto a city council decision that would have saved a pair of surface parking lots in downtown Stoney Creek from being converted into affordable housing.

Andrea Horwath says she will invoke use of strong mayor powers to advance a housing development and replace two municipal lots on Lake Avenue South that have been a contentious issue among the city’s politicians for weeks.

The lots were part of a larger plan to add permanent dwellings to the city’s affordable housing stock after six city-owned properties were put on a list and handed to council in early December as part of a Housing Sustainability and Investment roadmap.

It sought to add some 150 permanent dwellings to ease a housing crunch across a city with some 6,100 people on waitlists seeking to occupy rent-geared-to-income homes.