In the midst of a housing crisis, you have to be patient to build new in Montreal: since 2019, the delays in obtaining a permit have more than doubled in the city center and in other boroughs.
This is what city data reveals, obtained by The Presswhich shed new light on the slowdown in construction starts in the metropolis.
On average, in 2023, the Ville-Marie district took 18 months to authorize new construction, compared to 7 months before the pandemic. The wait is even longer in Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve: more than 20 months on average last year.
In both cases, these delays are largely attributable to municipal authorities, and not to the requesters, indicates the table prepared by Montreal and released as part of a request for access to information.
Furthermore, it took more than a year, on average, to obtain a permit for new construction in Lachine, LaSalle, Le Sud-Ouest and Le Plateau-Mont-Royal.
The situation is pushing developers to give up on Montreal, according to well-known businessman Luc Poirier. He himself has put an end to the idea of building in the metropolis.
Every day that passes, it costs a real estate developer a lot of money.
Businessman Luc Poirier
“The issuance of permits is a major obstacle. [Un délai hypothétique de] three years in real estate is like day and night,” denounced Mr. Poirier in a telephone interview.
“When we develop a project, we look at whether we put our money in Montreal or, say, in Ottawa, where the market is more interesting for building,” he added.
“Get the right projects off the ground more quickly”
The Plante administration refused the interview request of The Press on this new data.
“Everyone agrees: we must get good real estate projects off the ground more quickly by issuing construction permits as quickly as possible,” indicates a written statement sent by the mayor’s office on behalf of the head of the project. living on the executive committee, Benoit Dorais.
“Currently, there is no uniform process for calculating the time to obtain a permit and this harms the predictability expected by promoters,” the text continues. We must offer them simplicity, speed, and uniformity in the issuance of permits. »
The administration is committed to taking action this Tuesday, with the official announcement of the results of the Affordable Montreal Project (see other text).
The official opposition at Montreal city hall took issue with the current performance in terms of deadlines.
“While the City of Montreal should work to quickly increase supply to remedy the housing crisis, it is aberrant and worrying to note that obtaining a building permit is rather a process of the cross,” said indicated Aref Salem in a written statement. Instead of accelerating their delivery as promised in 2021 by the Plante administration, the situation is getting worse from year to year. »
“Planning difficulty for developers”
Guillaume Pelegrin, a municipal law lawyer from the Fasken law firm, is interested in the delays in issuing permits.
When we look at a district like Ville-Marie, the situation is extremely worrying.
Guillaume Pelegrin, municipal law lawyer at Fasken law firm
“These issues have been at the forefront for several years,” he said in a telephone interview. There have been a lot of efforts made by municipal administrations to speed up the issuance of permits. But it is clear, when we look at the statistics, that this is not the case. »
In his opinion, these delays have concrete impacts on the ability of real estate developers to put housing on the market.
“One of the main issues with delays is a difficulty in planning for developers. We can no longer count the number of projects for which it took so long that market conditions changed,” continued the lawyer.
Same story with the Urban Development Institute of Quebec (IDU), which represents the voice of real estate developers.
“We don’t want to build anything,” assured its spokesperson Isabelle Melançon, agreeing that the files had to be analyzed before a permit is issued. But these delays are exaggerated, she continued: “We are told that we must build more, that we must build faster. How do we achieve this? It is undoubtedly not with endless delays that we can achieve this. »
The Press reported last fall on data provided by Montreal which also showed an increase in waiting times to obtain a permit. However, these statistics combined construction permit applications and transformation permit applications, which significantly reduced the averages.