A committee created last summer to help the City of Montreal reach its target of developing 60,000 affordable housing units in the city has issued an initial report on the results of its efforts. Its authors propose in particular regulatory changes and tax relief to facilitate the realization of real estate projects in the metropolis.
The duty obtained a copy of this 16-page “progress report”, which will be officially tabled this morning at the executive committee meeting. This summarizes the work carried out by the 12 members of an advisory committee whose creation was announced in June 2022 by Mayor Valérie Plante.
By having city stakeholders, private developers and community groups sit around the same table, the head of Projet Montréal hoped to obtain possible solutions to help her achieve her goal – an election promise – to facilitate construction. 60,000 affordable housing units in the metropolis within ten years.
“Access to affordable rental housing is proving difficult for a growing proportion of citizens. As for home ownership, it has become out of reach for a large segment of the population. In short, the housing crisis affects, directly or indirectly, all Montrealers,” notes this report, written after its members met thirty times in recent months.
Regulatory changes
Currently, access to affordable rental housing, which “is proving difficult for a growing proportion of citizens”, in particular because of “demographic growth exceeding the pace of construction”, the scarcity of available land and of “the explosion of construction costs”.
Thus, the average rent for a two-bedroom unit rose 21% last year in Montreal to an average of $1,355, the report notes, citing data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. . In fact, 142,000 tenant households in the metropolis spent more than 30% of their income on housing in 2021, according to Statistics Canada.
“To maintain affordability, it requires even more specialized interventions than just letting the market create housing,” notes the president of the Broccolini Group and member of this committee, Roger Plamondon, in an interview with the Duty Tuesday evening.
To tackle this issue, the authors of the report propose in particular that the City adopt “a tax system that facilitates the realization of affordable housing projects” on its territory. The City is also invited to take advantage of the upcoming revision of its Urban Planning and Mobility Plan to “set ambitious targets for construction starts and prescribe optimal development densities”.
“Other flexibilities could be added to this approach, such as the reduction of fees and tariffs” which apply to real estate projects, when these relate to the construction of affordable housing, continues the report. The City could also implement measures aimed at accelerating the approval process for real estate projects in order to reduce their bills, “since time is money,” mentioned Mr. Plamondon.
Courses of action that the City intends to seriously examine, while this committee will continue its efforts until the end of the year. “For the moment, we think that all of this is doable,” Benoit Dorais, head of housing on the executive committee, who also sits on this committee, said in an interview. “It’s not wishful thinking, it’s achievable,” he insists.
Quebec and Ottawa should for their part increase the amounts allocated to programs intended for the construction of affordable housing, note the authors of the document. “Montreal alone cannot solve the affordability problem on its territory. It takes intervention from the upper levels, ”insists Roger Plamondon. The committee also proposes to involve more financial players and the private sector to complete the financing of such real estate projects.
A definition to clarify
However, the steps taken by this advisory committee did not lead to a clear definition of what affordable housing represents for the city. The document nevertheless specifies that these units should be aimed at residents whose incomes fall between those of low-income people and those with high incomes. For a single person, it is a question of an annual income ranging from 39,000 to 80,000 dollars per year, according to this document.
“In the coming weeks and months, we will be able to come up with prizes,” assures Benoit Dorais. Thus, the City sets itself the target of being able to determine more clearly how much the rent for housing, by size and by sector of the metropolis, should rise to be considered “affordable”, specifies the elected official.
As for the needs of the least well-off tenants in the metropolis, these will have to be met by more social housing, note the authors of the report. To do this, an increase in the sums allocated to such projects by Quebec and Ottawa is necessary, decides the committee.