Housing minister says applicants should 'be more ambitious than their neighbours'
Municipal applications for the federal housing accelerator fund face significant hurdles unless they demonstrate flexibility in adhering to zoning rules, according to Housing Minister Sean Fraser.
Fraser stressed that successful applications demonstrated a willingness to embrace zoning reforms, with the healthy competition for funding making some communities more amenable to reform.
“If you want to tap into the fund, be more ambitious than your neighbours,” Fraser said. “There are cities who won’t receive funding because they don’t want to end exclusionary zoning in Canada. I know who some of them are and maybe they’ll change their ways.”
Housing Minister Sean Fraser has suggested that the Canadian federal government is open to potential changes in its immigration targets in response to the country's housing challenges.
— Canadian Mortgage Professional Magazine (@CMPmagazine) September 12, 2023
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Fraser revealed that the federal government received 540 applications for the fund, but he estimated that only around 150 of these are likely to succeed.
“The reality is there’s not a city who signed a deal with us who hasn’t more or less ended exclusionary zoning in Canada,” Fraser said. “Cities should know that if you’re not willing to be amongst the most ambitious cities in the country when it comes to zoning reform permitting processes, you won’t be successful.”
The Housing Accelerator Fund aims to stimulate supply through a substantial $4 billion earmarked for Canadian municipalities and Indigenous governments. The program is slated to continue until 2026-27.
Earlier this week, the municipalities of St. Catharines, ON and Saint John, NB became the latest communities to cement agreements with the federal government. This brough the total number of agreements under the program to 22.
