After over an hour and almost every member of council speaking, council voted 10-7 in favour of buying the former St. Agnes Elementary School in Chatham.
The property at 55 Croydon Street was purchased from the St. Clair Catholic District School Board in 2021 by Indwell Community Homes for $635,000.
The motion at Monday's council meeting was to approve the purchase of the property from Indwell for $1.05 million plus any additional closing costs from Indwell.
The one-hectare property was originally going to be repurposed by Indwell for affordable housing. When funding for that endeavour fell through, it was brought to the municipality for purchase.
A report from municipal staff stated, "This property at the corner of Croydon Street and Semenyn Avenue in Chatham would be an ideal location to develop a future supportive and/or affordable housing build."
Ward 6 councilor Michael Bondy didn't support the purchase, wanting administration to admit they wanted the land only for affordable, attainable or supportive housing.
Bondy was concerned about later infrastructure or engineering costs associated with the purchase, which could include the property needing an adequate sewer system for a residential building with multiple units.
The confusion arose from the motion mentioning that Indwell had proposed building a 95-unit dwelling on the land. Chief Administration Officer, Michael Duben was quick to remind council that the motion was only to vote on the purchase of the land and not what the land would be used for. That decision would come from council at a later date.
"It's very difficult for us to engage in the market of buying property," explained Duben. "The challenge is that when we try to get in the market of buying property off the MLS... we can't compete. So what happens is the private sector buys the property and they do whatever they can, and they are in the business of making money. So there are less and less properties available to us to support your [council] objective which is affordable housing."
Duben reiterated that if council supported this, he assumed they would follow through on their intent to have properties available for the housing spectrum.
"Whether it's going to be supportive housing, or affordable housing or attainable housing that will depend on you. And I imagine you won't make that decision until you understand, 'A' what can be built on the site and 'B' what kind of other sources of funding there is," said Duben.
He added, "If the province were to announce tomorrow that they were willing to give municipalities x amount of dollars for affordable housing projects, then council may very well say 'Hey we have a piece of property that we own and that's ready, and we want to leverage the provincial dollars to do it.' If you don't have the property you are not going to get any of that money from the upper levels of government."
There is no current timeline for when a decision could be made on what to do with the newly purchased piece of land.