Construction | The long wait for a permit

It still takes longer than five years ago to obtain a building permit in Montreal, despite the City’s desire to reduce the wait by simplifying the bureaucracy, due to the housing crisis.

The delays vary depending on the districts, but throughout the metropolis, they have increased on average by 34%, if we compare them to those of 2018, according to data obtained and analyzed by The Press.

In most sectors, they have declined slightly since the start of 2023, but this can be explained by the fact that the number of permits has also decreased, while construction sites are slowing down due to the economic situation.

For example, in the Ville-Marie borough, which includes the city center, it takes an average of 106 days to obtain a permit, compared to 40.4 days in 2018. In Lachine, it is 114 .1 days, while it took 59.7 days in 2018.

Consequence: housing projects are delayed, even though the needs are dire.

Six years of waiting

“The delays are terrible! », exclaims entrepreneur Thomas Smeesters, before giving us some examples.

The CEO of Construction Tomico had to wait six years for his permit to be able to build a four-unit building on a residential street in the LaSalle borough.

“However, it was a very simple project, which did not require any exemptions,” he explains. Even though I had the right to build a fourplex in this area, the borough preferred something smaller. »

He therefore had to present 10 different versions of his project, over the years, before obtaining, in 2022, the coveted permit, thanks to a change in the town planning advisory committee (CCU), responsible for make recommendations to the borough council.

“In the midst of a housing shortage, this is absurd. When it takes less than a year, it’s because it went well,” laments Mr. Smeesters. However, the City of Montreal has been emphasizing for years the importance of densifying residential neighborhoods.

The entrepreneur is once again confronted with municipal bureaucracy for a 20-unit project, this time in the Montreal-North district. After providing all the required documents, a step that involves expenses, he says, of “several hundred thousand dollars,” he obtained his permit in 2022.

However, like many builders, he must now postpone the first shoveling of the ground due to the economic situation, which makes access to financing much more difficult.

Mr. Smeesters also had to deal with documents lost three times by a municipal official, for a residential project in the Ville-Émard district, he says.

Dual approval process

Mélanie Robitaille, vice-president and CEO of developer Rachel Julien, has been waiting for 11 months for her construction permit for a project of 1,000 housing units in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district. She purchased her land in February 2019. Almost five years later, launch expenses reached 7 million.

She points out the dual approval process that exists in Montreal: at the borough and at the city center. One waits after the other.

In addition, between purchasing the land and applying for a permit in December 2022, she had to do it twice to obtain her zoning change, because 71 citizens opposed it the first time.

A “facilitating cell”

However, the City aims to reduce bureaucracy and delays in issuing permits, to facilitate residential construction, elected officials have assured on several occasions.

A “facilitator cell”, made up of players in the housing field, was also set up for this purpose in 2021. Last March, the City announced that “dozens of tools and avenues solution” identified by the unit would be tested, for one year, in four boroughs: Ville-Marie, Sud-Ouest, LaSalle and Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie.

As in the majority of boroughs, the delays in these four sectors have decreased slightly since the start of the year, except in LaSalle, where they increased from 58 to 68.9 days compared to 2022. But everywhere, the issuance of permits still takes longer than it did five years ago.

This situation can be explained in part by the greater complexity of urban planning requests and regulations, according to Benoit Dorais, responsible for housing at the executive committee and mayor of the Sud-Ouest district.

“In our district, we have changed our town planning regulations four times. Renovation projects are now considered construction projects, in certain cases,” he observes, which can influence permit delivery times. Delays in the South West have increased from 55.4 days in 2018 to 97 days in 2022, then to 85 days since the start of 2023.

However, changes can still be implemented in the organization of work and at certain stages of the process, he recognizes.

“Unequal” practices

“Practices are very unequal from one district to another,” particularly at the CCU stage, observes the person responsible for economic development on the executive committee, Luc Rabouin, also mayor of Plateau-Mont-Royal.

The action plan of the facilitating unit first targets the largest projects, likely to create the greatest number of housing units, in the four test districts, explains Mr. Rabouin.

“We are following 90 large projects as a priority, because they are more complex and therefore encounter more deadline issues,” he says. All projects of 10 million or more, and all social housing projects of 3 million or more, are automatically targeted. »

After the causes of delays in these 90 projects as well as the solutions to try to reduce them have been identified, best practices will be communicated with all the boroughs, indicates Mr. Rabouin.

“Most elected officials in Montreal know that there is a housing crisis and are aware of the importance of being efficient,” he adds. We are aware of the scale of the challenge, changes may take a little time. »

With the collaboration of André Dubuc and Pierre-André Normandin, The Press