Montreal is currently facing one of the biggest housing crises of recent decades. On October 20, the leaders of the large real estate companies Devimco and Groupe Mach deplored being “kept away” from discussions on how to get out of this crisis or on the redevelopment of certain sectors, such as that of the Peel basin.
According to them, it was necessary “to stop seeing the private sector as a problem”, since the latter was the only one to have the necessary resources to finance and carry out the vast residential construction site promised by the main candidates for mayor of Montreal as a solution. to the housing crisis.
Such a position is surprising. First, major Montreal developers such as Devimco and Groupe Mach have been at the forefront of urban development for the past 20 years.
They are the main builders of new housing (in particular condominiums) and are behind the most important urban redevelopment projects in recent years, particularly in downtown Montreal (in the Griffintown district, on the former land of the CN, on the site of the former Montreal Children’s Hospital, in the future “Quartier des lumière” for example).
These real estate projects have received significant support from the public authorities and will have a lasting effect on downtown Montreal.
In this context, it is difficult to see what the main private players in residential development would be effectively excluded from.
Second, the claim that the private sector could be part of the solution to the housing crisis remains to be seen. Until now, the unique development model he instigated has been an important factor in the rise in the costs of access to housing and residential construction, an increase with which actors (public and private) must now contend. profit) which attempt to provide more affordable options.
Pay compensation
What about the resistance repeatedly displayed by representatives of this industry to the very idea of departing from this model in order to make way for social and affordable housing or even public infrastructure? It has certainly happened that such initiatives have seen the light of day, but in many cases they have had to be taken from industry, either through citizen mobilizations or through regulations.
The newspaper’s recent investigation The duty (October 12 edition) has clearly shown that, since 2005, the majority of large residential real estate developers have preferred to pay compensation to a fund created by the City of Montreal rather than including social housing in their real estate projects.
It is therefore not so much a question of whether more room should be made for the private sector to resolve the housing crisis, but rather to free oneself from a type of development which is in part the cause. We must first recognize that cities alone do not have all the means to tackle the problem. They need better financial support from other levels of government and they need new powers, both in terms of zoning and revenue collection and in terms of controlling property rights.
These will allow them to exercise better control over the development of their territory and not systematically find themselves behind major real estate projects that do not meet the needs of the vast majority of the population.
Affordable housing
The current state of the means and powers available to cities does not however condemn them to impotence. For example, by creating the Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal at the end of the 1980s, the City of Montreal acquired an important tool for the development of affordable housing, which today we seem to have forgotten. existence.
Following its creation, this para-municipal corporation acquired and renovated several hundred dwellings with the aim of re-letting them at an affordable cost.
It now owns more than 2,000 and administers more than 2,000 others on behalf of the federal government. However, it has ceased its acquisitions since previous municipal administrations reoriented its mission towards supporting private development.
The City of Montreal could very well give the SHDM back its former powers and, thanks to the assets now held by this company, revive practices that have significantly favored access to housing.
This is a path in which the City could embark on an autonomous basis, in a complementary manner to any intervention by other governments and, above all, without depending on a private sector which has demonstrated over the past two decades that it was not the solution to the problems of access and the right to housing.