Those who were hoping for a shower of billions or an avalanche of new social housing will be disappointed by the Quebec Housing Strategy, which will be unveiled this Thursday.
I’ve got the broad outlines, and it will look more like this: a series of measures, some strong, others less so, to speed up construction.
To take a simple image, it is as if the Legault government wanted to throw a can of gasoline on the warm embers of the housing market.
How ?
There will be a call for tenders in a few days to build 500 “highly prefabricated” housing units in 18 months. A first pilot project before opening the tap wider.
Quebec wants to convert more than a hundred unused government buildings and lands across the territory into housing.
A form of “bonus” will be offered to the most efficient cities in easing their regulations.
And finally, the government will make more room for new financing models for social and affordable housing.
This strategy has been demanded from all sides for years, including by community groups. The birth has been long.
The work began under former Housing Minister Andrée Laforest and continued under current Minister France-Élaine Duranceau. What has changed in the meantime is that the Legault government has – finally – acknowledged the existence of a housing crisis in the province.
The new strategy “will not solve everything,” France-Élaine Duranceau admitted in an interview, but it will serve as a “road map” to tackle the “problems” identified since the beginning of her mandate.
A new target for construction starts has been set: at least 560,000 homes will need to be built by 2034, it estimates. That’s 115,000 more than recent forecasts.
The goal will be to bring the housing ratio per household back to what it was before the pandemic, i.e. 1,123, compared to 1,104 today. Not very evocative figures for the average bear: it basically means that demand far exceeds supply.
France-Élaine Duranceau has been saying it for two years, not without raising a good deal of controversy: the old ways of doing things no longer work. That is why she scrapped the old AccèsLogis social housing construction program, replaced by the Programme d’habitation agréable Québec (PHAQ).
Without going into all the details, the PHAQ demands more speed in the start of projects. And the minister will demand even more efficiency from now on.
We really want every dollar invested to go to the right place, to the right partner, and for it to deliver. I think that in housing, there has not necessarily always been a lack of money, there has just perhaps been a lack of vision, and then of rigor, and that is what we are reframing.
France-Élaine Duranceau, Minister responsible for Housing
No new money is attached to the strategy, only budgets already announced. This aspect will undoubtedly raise a lot of criticism. Investments of $3.7 billion are planned over the next five years and new agreements with Ottawa could increase this amount, the minister suggests.
One thing is certain: a form of competition will begin to emerge between cities that wish to attract housing projects financed by Quebec.
Municipalities were granted “superpowers” at the beginning of the year following the adoption of Bill 31 on housing, tabled by Minister Duranceau. Among other things, they can deviate from their own urban planning rules in order to speed up construction starts.
The ball is in their court to stand out, the politician says in short.
Quebec intends to “congratulate [les municipalités] who are effective and who do things differently.” How? “In the financial aid, in the financial tools that we are going to put in place, this aspect will be taken into consideration.”
France-Élaine Duranceau gave me the recent example of the Unitaînés project, led by philanthropist Luc Maurice. This project of 10 residences for low-income seniors, financed in part by the PHAQ and totaling 1,000 housing units, was launched in cities willing to offer land and skim their bureaucratic processes.1.
IMAGE PROVIDED BY MISSION UNITAÎNÉS
A sketch of the buildings planned in 10 Quebec cities by Mission Unitaînés.
A model to follow, believes the minister. “Unitaînés did it very well. They said: we are going to the cities where things will go quickly and where the difficulties will be smoothed out. That does not mean not respecting any regulations, it means collaborating better.”
In short, two other elements emerge, in my opinion, from this strategy.
First, this intention to focus heavily on modular construction seems to me to be a good idea. Quebec already has several leading companies in this industry, but the emphasis until now has been on single-family homes.
A call for proposals will be launched next week to attract consortia, made up of architects, general contractors and “prefab” manufacturers. They will have to submit integrated projects to build a first tranche of 500 housing units throughout the province in less than 18 months.
Quebec intends to quickly order 500 additional units. And if the project lives up to expectations, the floodgates could open much more. An interesting way to quickly boost the housing supply.
The other new component is the provision of unused government buildings and land. A census exercise has been conducted in several ministries and agencies for a year, at the end of which more than 100 properties have been identified.
Under an article buried in Bill 31, Quebec will be able to transfer these buildings, free of charge or at a good price, to organizations that will then convert them into housing. This could facilitate many projects. Especially since the purchase of land often represents a significant part of a financial plan.
Disappointments, applause, heated debates: this new Quebec strategy will be examined from every angle in the coming weeks.
1. Read the column “1000 homes, 10 buildings, one model”