A tiny sample of 42 entrepreneurial promoters reports 25,000 housing units currently blocked for different reasons, according to a survey conducted by the Association of Construction and Housing Professionals of Quebec (APCHQ) among its members.
“Mathematically, these are 25,000 housing units, but if we transpose it into the number of people, while we find on average 2.3 people per household in Quebec, it is roughly the equivalent of the city of Shawinigan or Saint-Hyacinthe,” explains Isabelle Demers, vice-president of public affairs at the APCHQ. We are in fact talking about 57,500 people who could be accommodated if we rely on this average.
And this figure of 25,000 is only the tip of the iceberg since the APCHQ brings together thousands of members.
“It’s a big undervaluation,” recognizes Ms. Demers. These are the ones who were willing to reveal it to us because there are several who do not want to tell it. Sometimes they don’t necessarily want to say that they have blocked projects because they are in discussions with the cities or in discussions with the banks.”
All across the province
The regional distribution of this very limited sample shows 10,000 units blocked in the Montreal and Laurentides regions combined, nearly 7,000 in Estrie, approximately 4,500 in Montérégie, 2,000 in Outaouais and approximately 1,000 in the combined sectors of Lanaudière and Mauricie, the rest being distributed elsewhere, notably in the Quebec region.
“It’s a mix of multi-dwellings, single-family homes, townhouses, but at the moment, mostly multi-dwellings are being built in Quebec. There are certain social projects there such as cooperative projects, for example,” lists Ms. Demers.
The “not in my backyard”
The problem of the administrative burden of cities in issuing permits has often been invoked, but the APCHQ notes that there are also zoning problems and also the rise of the “not in my backyard” phenomenon.
This is the case in certain residential areas where citizens do not want to see their environment modified by multi-dwelling construction, explains Isabelle Demers, who gives this example:
“There was a project that ticked off all the measures that one could imagine for social acceptability, that is to say close to public transportation, with a grocery store, with daycare, schools, units that were both social or affordable and units that were less so, truly a project that ticks all the boxes. Then there were 48 citizens who decided to block it because it blocked a view that was important to them. We understand that for them, this view is important, but it comes at the expense of densification and housing for many other households.”
The APCHQ believes that the time has come to move from words to action in terms of densification of the urban territory to tackle the housing crisis.
“In general, we need to stop throwing the ball at each other. Everyone must take their share of responsibility to say to themselves: what can we do to ensure that we are able to build these houses and these dwellings to house people?