Housing Accelerator update, week 25
Saskatoon, Thunder Bay, Whitehorse, North Vancouver, plus smaller communities in Ontario and New Brunswick
Howard Chai at Storeys has a comprehensive list of all Housing Accelerator agreements, in the order in which they were announced. Every Canadian City That Has Received Housing Accelerator Funds.
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
Week 21: agreement with Waterloo, vote in Oakville, Windsor rejected, Surrey details
Week 22: agreements with Charlottetown, Regina, Coquitlam, low-cost loans for student housing
Week 23: agreements with Ottawa, Abbotsford, Victoria, smaller communities on Vancouver Island
Week 24: agreement with Edmonton, plus smaller communities in Newfoundland, Alberta, and Nova Scotia
Saskatoon, SK
Feds make $41M housing funding announcement in Saskatoon. Bryn Levy, Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, February 28.
Saskatoon city staff applied to the fund in May 2023, submitting a 13-point proposal including ideas aimed at allowing more accessory dwellings like garage and garden suites, and allowing taller building heights for residential developments near transit.
Other points in the plan call for allowing fourplexes to be built on lots “as-of-right,” meaning they wouldn’t require special approval, and a proposal to abolish minimum parking requirements for developments in corridor areas.
The three-year target is for 940 additional homes, and the ten-year target is 25,200 additional homes.
At the announcement, Randy Boissonault described the Housing Accelerator Fund as unlocking “trillions of dollars” in private investment across the country. That seems a bit overstated. Billions, yes: every 1000 additional homes, at $500K each, corresponds to half a billion dollars of investment. If the Housing Accelerator agreements result in 600,000 additional homes over 10 years, that’s $300 billion.
Thunder Bay, ON
Thunder Bay, Ont., getting $20M in federal funds to build hundreds of housing units, Trudeau says. Alex Brockman, CBC News, February 29. The three-year target is for 650 homes, and the ten-year target is 1670 homes.
Trudeau was in Thunder Bay to make the announcement:
The housing crisis that began in Canada's biggest cities has spread across the country, said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he announced federal funding of over $20 million to spur housing development in Thunder Bay, Ont.
"We have seen housing prices and rent prices go up significantly across the country over the past years," Trudeau said. "What started as a downtown Toronto and a downtown Vancouver challenge has quickly spread to every corner of the country."
The announcement represents one part of the federal government's strategy to address the country's housing crisis, by adding supply to the market, what Trudeau called "basic economics" involving supply and demand.
"When you're talking about challenges faced by both the biggest cities and the smallest most remote communities, you have to know there's not a one-size-fits-all solution that is going to solve all of those challenges," he said.
"One of the pieces of the solution is going to be: build more supply. If there are more homes available, if there are more apartments where people can find rents, that will keep the prices down at a reasonable market level."
Whitehorse, YK
A week dominated by funding announcements to tackle Yukon’s housing crisis. Matthew Bossons, Yukon News, March 1.
Also on Feb. 28, the federal government and City of Whitehorse announced an agreement to fast-track the construction of nearly 200 housing units over the next three years. The federal government’s Housing Accelerator Fund will provide Whitehorse with almost $11 million in “incentive payments,” according to Yukon MP Brendan Hanley, who made the announcement.
“Whitehorse will receive almost $11 million in incentive payments through Canada’s Housing Accelerator Fund to deliver significant lasting changes to the way homes are built in our great city. Changes that will tear down the barriers and the stumbling blocks that slow housing down,” Hanley said.
He added, “These actions together will help build over 190 new homes. That’s about 190 more homes for a rapidly growing city. What’s more, this work will help spur the construction of more than 3,900 homes over the next decade.”
North Grenville, ON
$5.2 million in funding announced to bolster housing in North Grenville. Jennifer Westendorp, Kemptville Advance, March 2.
The three-year target is 670 homes, and the ten-year target is 1700 homes. The focus is on missing-middle housing, in particular allowing up to three units on serviced lots.
Bathurst / Caraquet / Shippagan / Tracadie, NB
Feds announce $10.5M to help with housing plans in Acadie-Bathurst. Jennifer Bishop, Telegraph-Journal, March 1.
Four municipalities in the Chaleur region and Acadian Peninsula will receive $10.5 million in federal funding to accelerate the construction of more housing.
Sean Fraser, Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, announced the money during a press conference in Bathurst Friday.
The money from the Housing Accelerator Fund is to help fast track the construction of more than 300 homes in the communities of Bathurst, Caraquet, Tracadie, and Shippigan over the next three years.
The City of Bathurst will receive $3 million, the Town of Caraquet will receive $2.7 million, the Town of Shippigan will receive $2.5 million and the Regional Municipality of Tracadie will receive $2.5 million under the fund.
It will roll out in increments with 25 per cent to the municipalities up front, and additional funding each of the next three years as long as milestones laid out in the agreement are met, Fraser said.
The ten-year target is 3,100 additional homes.
North Vancouver, BC
Feds pump in $18M to speed up City of North Vancouver housing. Brent Richter, North Shore News, March 1.
Some of the projects the cash is earmarked for include a revamp of the city’s zoning bylaw to make it less exclusionary with built-in affordability measures, the allowance of multiplexes with four, six, or eight units on single-family lots, pre-zoning land for higher densities near the urban core and transit, a review of parking requirements, clearing the way for more mass timber construction, streamlining the application process and improving the technology at the front end, allowing some functions to be automated and deeper study of the city’s servicing needs.
Over the first three years, the program should add 530 new units over and above the city’s average of approximately 1,350 annually, and 3,100 new homes in the city over the next 10 years.