Posted at 5:00 a.m.
A major report was published a few months ago on the housing crisis.
It reads that “property prices […] nearly tripled in the past 10 years, growing faster than incomes” and that owning a home is “out of reach for most first-time homebuyers in the province, even those have a well-paid job.
The conclusion of this report? “The system is not working as it should. »
Sound familiar? This is the situation that prevails in Ontario, but we have to admit that the similarities with Quebec are striking.
Overall, the issues are perhaps a little less serious on this side of the Ottawa River, especially when it comes to affordability; Montreal is not Toronto, for example.
Nevertheless, they are still glaring, these problems.
A striking figure: in Quebec, real estate prices had doubled last year compared to 2009 and tripled compared to 2003, all categories of properties combined.
The report we are talking about was written by the Housing Task Force, formed at the request of Premier Doug Ford. The latter learned from this: he subsequently legislated on the subject.
Quebec could also take inspiration from this study.
Firstly, because here too it is important to build more housing.
Perhaps not as much as in Ontario, where they say they need 1.5 million new units over the next 10 years. But all the same, in Quebec, we are talking at the very least of 600,000 to 650,000 in 10 years, according to figures from the Association of Construction and Housing Professionals of Quebec.
In other words, 100,000 more new dwellings would have to be built over the next decade than those already planned according to the housing starts estimates.
Others, such as the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, believe that the necessary catch-up will be even greater.
It is therefore urgent to increase the pace.
How ?
It will probably not be possible without changing certain rules of the game.
Here again, it is possible to draw inspiration from the Ontario plan. Starting with the idea of requiring increased density in the future. It is important to put forward a whole series of measures to achieve this. This is the key, as we have already explained.
The Ontario report mentions, among other things, the end of municipal rules that prevent or delay the construction of new housing and the depoliticization of the housing approval process.
It is crucial to discuss this here as well. However, be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
As Jean-Philippe Meloche, Associate Professor at the School of Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Montreal, reminded us, “if we want to have cities that are not just inhabited because we housing has been built there, but habitable because we have created living environments, it takes a minimum of regulation and supervision”.
It would also be beneficial to follow another important recommendation made in Ontario: provide financial support to municipalities that build more housing. Doug Ford has set up a fund for this purpose, endowed with 45 million dollars.
It is therefore no longer the ideas that are lacking to facilitate the construction of new housing. The Ontario game plan can be very useful to us.
Thanks to Doug Ford, then. Now, we have to see to what extent the political will will be there in Quebec as well as in Ontario.
This is the very first obstacle that stands in the way of those who demand that we change the situation. Also, besides the usual force of inertia, let’s not forget that the labor shortage and rising costs are hitting the construction industry hard.
What is timely is that an election is upon us. The debate on ideas that will precede it is the ideal opportunity to agree on the means that the next government would do well to put forward in this priority file.