On Friday, April 12, 2024, the Federal government announced and released details for Canada’s Housing Plan. Per the backgrounder provided by the federal government “Through Canada’s Housing Plan, the government is committing to building more homes, faster; increasing housing affordability; growing the community housing sector; and, making it easier to rent or buy a home.”
Coming ahead of the next federal budget, which has already been previewed as being heavily focused on housing, Friday’s announcement reiterates programs already announced putting all initiatives under the umbrella of the Housing Plan. A great summary of the Housing Plan has been provided by the Canadian Housing Renewal Association – CHRA:
- Boosting Affordable Housing: The government is allocating an additional $1 billion to the Affordable Housing Fund (AHF), building on the previous $1 billion top-up announced in the 2023 Fall Economic Statement. The additional grant and contribution funding will offset the impact of higher interest rates and construction costs.
- Protecting Rental Affordability: The federal government is introducing a $1.5 billion Canada Rental Protection Fund to help community housing providers secure affordable rental units that are at risk of being sold to investors, ensuring long-term affordability.
- Unlocking Public Land: Through the Public Lands for Homes plan, the government will unlock underused public land for housing, accelerating availability and creating a mapping tool to track potential sites.
- Supporting Co-operative Housing: With the $1.5 billion Co-operative Housing Development Program, previously announced in budget 2022, they aim to facilitate new co-operative housing projects nationwide, starting in the summer of 2024.
- Reducing Construction Costs: The federal government is removing GST from new rental apartment construction projects and supporting non-profit universities, public colleges, and school authorities in building new student residences and co-ops.
- Facilitating Apartment Construction: The federal government is reforming the Apartment Construction Loan Program (ACLP) and providing an additional $15 billion in loans to construct at least 30,000 new rental apartments.
- Collaborative Building Efforts: Introducing Canada Builds to amplify the impact of federal funding by partnering with provinces and territories with ambitious housing plans.
- Enhancing Housing Data: Investing $20 million for modernizing housing data collection and dissemination to better inform policy decisions.
- Accelerating Home Construction: Providing $400 million to the Housing Accelerator Fund to incentivize the creation of 12,000 new homes by streamlining construction processes.
- Linking Housing to Transit Funding: Requiring housing-related actions from communities seeking public transit funding, like reducing parking requirements and allowing high-density housing near transit lines and educational institutions.
- Investing in Housing Infrastructure: Launching a $6 billion Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund to support the construction and upgrading of critical housing infrastructure, including water and waste management.
- Promoting Innovation: Introducing $100 million in total investment funds and initiatives to support innovative housing technologies, modular housing, and apprenticeship opportunities in the construction sector.
- Tenant Protection and Rights: Establishing a Tenant Protection Fund, creating a Canadian Renters’ Bill of Rights, and investing in stabilizing Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy to ensure fair treatment and housing stability.
In addition to the announcement of the Canada Housing Plan, the news sanctioning a 30-year mortgage amortization for first-time home buyers was announced last week. This will provide a significant leg up to young purchasers to ease the carrying cost of a home purchase, and if we can anticipate the easing of interest rates after the Bank of Canada held the benchmark rate at 5%, this initiative could prove to be a great opportunity for first-time purchasers.
The initiative of a 30-year amortization and many aspects of the Housing Plan directly reflect the work and advocacy that have been championed by our CHBA National colleagues and have been supported by provincial HBAs and locals including HAVAN. In addition to the day-to-day consultations and lobbying with federal officials, CHBA has over the last several years organized and staged the annual Day on the Hill wherein representatives from national, provincial, and local HBAs met with MPs from across the country to present our collective messaging and asks in a package called “Unlocking the Door to Home Ownership.”
Foremost of the “asks” was establishing an opportunity for 30-year amortizations, but if you review the package, you will find almost all of the other points identified by the Association are reflected in the Housing Plan.
The package also provides current and relevant statistics regarding our industry that reinforce the relevance of our sector to the Canadian Economy that underpin and substantiate advocating for these points. It is very gratifying and a tribute to the efforts of the association to see the traction our efforts seem to have gained and we look forward to seeing positive results stemming from the introduction of these initiatives. This also provides a great endorsement for the structure of the association and the value we can provide to members by bringing the voice of the industry to the attention of municipal, provincial, and federal levels of government.
The federal Housing Plan and many of the policies recently tabled by the provincial government are not perfect and don’t meet universal approval, however, they are very comprehensive and will lead to substantive changes in the industry and the housing market. These programs are positioned to present an opportunity to see all levels of government and industry working in concert to address our housing supply and affordability challenges.
The work is not done though, and HAVAN together with our provincial and national bodies will need to ensure that the rollout and implementation of these many programs are such that they yield positive results and serve to efficiently and effectively deliver housing across the continuum. One of the next issues that we need to continue to lobby for is easing the impact of the mortgage stress test in the face of today’s interest rate environment. We also need to continue to emphasize the need to work collaboratively and make the best use of the funding and the tools being provided to streamline and accelerate the provision of “more homes faster.”
HAVAN continues to work with CHBA BC and CHBA to advocate for all levels of government to work together to address the challenges of the housing industry including zoning restrictions, density limits, and NIMBYism.
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QUICK BITES …
- Continuing in the vein of building “more homes faster” the province has tabled Bill 18 which proposes significant changes to the Vancouver Charter. This will require Vancouver to adopt a city-wide official development plan which currently does not exist. Changes will align public hearing requirements to match those of other municipalities to limit “one-off” public hearings when projects are consistent with the official plan and will include improvements to streamline approvals. The Charter may also be amended to dissolve the Park Board, and would it not be nice while they are at it if the City of Vancouver would align with the same structure and regulation applied to every other municipality to eliminate confusion, redundancy, and increased costs of maintaining a non-aligned and parallel regulatory environment.
- Introduced by the province a week ago, last Friday Bill 16 “… gives local governments authority to enact bylaws that support proactive planning to build more housing, including affordable housing, while also contributing to reduced timelines for development applications.” The bill includes regulations that address Inclusionary Zoning, Density Bonus updates, Site-Level infrastructure, and Tenant protection by-laws.
- The BC Building Code has been amended in regard to mass timber construction. These changes are now in effect and include:
- Enable taller EMTC buildings, up to 18 stories for residential and office buildings from the previous 12-storey limit,
- Add new EMTC building types – including schools, community centres, care facilities, retail, and light- and medium-hazard industrial in addition to residential and office buildings, and
- Change encapsulation requirements, allowing for more mass timber to be exposed depending on a building’s height and use.
- RBC Economics has published “The Great Rebuild – Seven ways to fix Canada’s housing shortage.” Presented by Robert Hogue RBC Chief Economist, the seven ways reflect much of what HAVAN has been advocating for and is reinforced by the statistics and facts noted in Hogue’s analysis.
- BC Housing‘s March New Home Registry Report is now out. Highlights include 9,916 homes registered reflecting 1,569 singles and 8,347 multis echoing what we are hearing from members. Please follow the link for more information and comprehensive statistics.
