Housing Accelerator update, week 21

Agreement with Waterloo, vote in Oakville, rejection in Windsor, Surrey details

Previously:

• Federal plan: London, Calgary, GST on new rental housing

• Housing Accelerator update, weeks 2-4: Halifax, Mississauga, Vaughan

• Week 5: Hamilton, Mississauga, Halifax, Metro Vancouver

• Week 6: Quebec, Kitchener, Guelph, Burlington, Ajax, Mississauga

• Week 7: Mississauga, Brampton, Ajax, Moncton, Richmond Hill, Kelowna, Metro Vancouver, Edmonton

• Week 8: Metro Vancouver, Waterloo, Charlottetown, Winnipeg

• Week 9: Kitchener, Quebec

• Week 10: Calgary, Winnipeg, Moncton

• Week 11: Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg

• Week 12: Richmond Hill, Toronto, Oakville

• Week 14: Windsor, Toronto, Vancouver

• Week 15: agreements with Mississauga, Burnaby, Winnipeg, and Toronto

• Week 17: agreement with Iqaluit

• Week 18: agreements with Summerside, Surrey, and Guelph

• Week 19: agreements with Burlington, St. Catharines, Saint John, Kingston, Ajax

• Week 20: agreements with Fredericton, Richmond, Milton, Whitby, Squamish

Waterloo, ON

Waterloo is outlined in red

In October, Waterloo city council voted unanimously to move forward with making it legal by right to build four units and four storeys everywhere in the city. Last week, Justin Trudeau announced a Housing Accelerator agreement with Waterloo.

Brad Kraemer, CityNews:

The Prime Minister made the trip from Ottawa to Waterloo Region to make a major funding announcement.

At the Fairview Parkwood Senior Community homes in Waterloo, Trudeau revealed that the federal government and the City of Waterloo have struck a deal on a $22 million investment. It’s the second federal investment in Waterloo Region through the Housing Accelerator Fund.

“[The investment] will unlock 650 homes in the coming years and over 15000 homes over the next decade,” said Trudeau. “That kind of math shows the leveraging amount when we work directly with municipalities to respond to their needs and concerns.”

$22 million would pay for 44 homes at $500K each, so 650 homes is more than 12X as many, and 15000 homes is more than 300X as many.

Oakville, ON

News that I missed last week: Oakville city council voted on January 22 to accept four units per lot (although a number of councillors voted against). Sean Fraser had previously said that this was a requirement in order for him to give his approval for Oakville’s Housing Accelerator application.

Lawson Hunter, Oakville News: Oakville’s $36 million federal housing fund application comes down to the wire.

On Oct. 25, Mayor Burton received a letter from Federal Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, Sean Fraser, saying, "there are a few additional measures I request that you consider in order to strengthen Oakville's application."

At a Nov. 28 council meeting to discuss the upcoming 2024 budget, Oakville North—Burlington MP Pam Damoff made an unprecedented delegation urging council to act with urgency and consider the suggestions as outlined by Minister Fraser’s letter.

The Mayor wrote back to Minister Fraser on Dec. 21 that matters were in hand and would be dealt with at an upcoming council meeting.

A subsequent letter was received from Minister Fraser on January 11, 2024 requesting the town to adopt a by-law to "allow for four dwelling units on a single lot on an as-of-right basis" and "allowing four storeys and four or more units as-of-right within an 800 metre radius of Sheridan College."

The requirement to allow four units by right was the major sticking point:

The provincial government’s Bill 23 in 2022 changed zoning across the province to allow the creation of up to three units "as-of-right" on most residential lots that are zoned for a single home without a municipal by-law amendment.

Several councillors saw little difference between 3 or 4 units on one residential lot.

After a five hour-long session at the Planning and Development Council meeting, a vote was taken on the motion by the Mayor in support of the Housing Accelerator Fund Application, as advised by Minister Fraser including four amendments. It passed.

However, four councillors (Duddeck, Chisholm, Elgar and Nanda) voted against the amendment accepting the four units per property as-of-right zoning change.

Windsor, ON

Windsor city council voted on the same day to reject four units per right (with three councillors supporting the change). Last week they received a letter from Sean Fraser telling them that their Housing Accelerator application has been rejected.

CBC: Windsor city council doubles down on housing fund decision.

Windsor city council is sticking with its decision not to permit fourplexes on all lots in the city, moving to submit an application to a massive federal housing fund without meeting that condition.

Kathleen Saylor, CBC:

In a letter to [Mayor] Dilkens, Fraser said he watched council's Jan. 22 meeting, where council decided "to stop short of the best practices we published to encourage cities to increase their ambition in their applications to the fund."

"[And] in the presence of applications from neighbouring cities that are determined to meet those standards, I cannot approve Windsor's application," Fraser wrote in the letter obtained by CBC News. 

Fraser said his team had proposed an alternative motion to what the city had drafted, and [the city’s motion] was "less ambitious" than other cities — including London — had committed to.

"I expect my decision on this application will not come as a surprise," he wrote.

Surrey, BC

Howard Chai, Storeys: Inside the city of Surrey's Housing Accelerator Fund action plan. Describes the details of the action plan.

The City included two high-level housing projections in its Housing Accelerator Fund application: the total number of permitted housing units projected without the action plan and the total number of permitted housing units projects with the action plan. With the action plan, the City says it expects to increase the amount of housing delivered by 27.8%, to an average of 4,283 permitted per year.

There’s a number of initiatives included in the action plan. One is for the city to offer rebates for fees related to rezoning, engineering site servicing, and building permits, for projects that are close to SkyTrain or RapidBus, and for projects which “will deliver non-market units.” The latter projects would also have DCCs waived. The fee rebates will be reimbursed from the Housing Accelerator funding.

There’s a separate initiative to update community plans for higher density near rapid transit:

This would include reviewing the City's Official Community Plan and various neighbourhood plans and amending them where needed to permit high-density multi-unit housing near transit areas, without the need for traditional lengthy review processes. The City says it may also create new multi-family zones that are market responsive and have adjusted parking requirements.

And there’s an initiative to expand Surrey’s guaranteed timelines to cover multifamily housing forms, not just single-detached houses.