Canadian Government Calls for Change in Local Rules to Address Affordable Housing Crisis

We have been clear that local rules must change and that local governments must be more ambitioushe declared, taking care to add that his government will be there to support their ambitions.

Remember that the country is currently experiencing a serious shortage of affordable housing (new window) compounded by soaring inflation and mortgage rates that are depriving large numbers of Canadians of safe, affordable housing. Many simply no longer have a place to stay and are forced into homelessness.

Earlier today, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), which published its 2023 report on the housing shortage, estimated that at least 3.5 million more housing units would have to be built by 2030 to restore affordability in the country (new window).

Agreement with the City of London

It is therefore in a spirit of accelerating construction that Mr. Trudeau announced on Wednesday the conclusion of an agreement with the City of London to activate the construction of more than 2,000 housing units over the next three years, in addition to building thousands more over the following years.

Right now […] it is too difficult to build the housing we need, especially affordable housing. That’s why the federal government is working with municipalities to remove barriers and build more housing, fasterwrites the Prime Minister’s Office.

With the $74 million allocated to it, the City of London will be able, according to the Prime Minister’s Office, allowing high-density development without zoning changes, removing a significant barrier to creating the type of housing we need.

In addition, it is added, London will now allow the construction of a maximum number of four housing units per property in low-density neighborhoods, will dispose of some of its land so that more housing can be developed and will establish partnerships with non-profit housing providers to get more affordable housing built.

Ottawa intends to stimulate the construction of duplexes, triplexes or small affordable housing buildings in the country. All, if possible, close to public transportation to give priority to housing families, students, seniors and newcomers.

The federal government plans to improve the overall housing supply by 100,000 new housing units in cities and Indigenous communities thanks to this measure worth $4 billion.

To benefit from this money, however, municipal administrations will have to adopt innovative action plans.

Each agreement entered into under the Accelerated Housing Construction Fund will require the affected municipality to end exclusionary zoning and encourage the construction of apartments near public transportationwarns the Prime Minister’s office.

We invite local governments to think big and be bold in their approaches.

Municipal offices singled out

Prime Minister Trudeau is not the only one to point the finger at the heaviness of municipal bureaucracy in the delays in the construction of social housing.

Last March, the day after the tabling of his government’s budget, the Prime Minister of Quebec, François Legault, responded to the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, who accused him of ignoring the housing crisis (new window)that the problem of the lack of housing is not attributable to the insufficiency of financial resources granted by the government, but to the inefficiency of municipal offices which, according to him, take far too long to build housing.

According to Mr. Legault, his Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, noted that for two years, the money devoted to social housing has not been entirely spent in Quebec due to the delay in construction, hence his decision to devote 2023 amounts to the acceleration of construction sites rather than the announcement of thousands of new housing units which will not be built.