Ontario Construction News staff writer
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a pre-Christmas stop in Toronto, announcing $471 million in funding through the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) Funding is contingent on the city building an additional 11,780 homes on top of what has already been projected over the next three years.
“We’ve set a new goal of building 65,000 rent-controlled homes, and we’re committed to the provincial target of 285,000 homes by 2031,” said Mayor Olivia Chow. “Housing Accelerator Fund investments are essential to addressing the housing crisis and meeting these targets. Everyone deserves an affordable roof over their heads, and today’s announcement helps make that a reality.”
HAF is delivered through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), as part of the National Housing Strategy. HAF aims to achieve 100,000 new homes across Canada over the next three years.
The city is expected to build new rental homes, protect existing rental homes and people who rent as well as revitalize neighbourhoods across Toronto.
Toronto submitted an HAF application to CMHC in June and followed up with a revised submission in August, outlining eight initiatives focused on creating more affordable housing faster in neighbourhoods across Toronto that include:
- Transforming organizational structures, processes and technology used to deliver development review and increasing capacity to expedite the approval of development applications.
- Revitalizing Toronto Community Housing buildings and creating net new RGI and affordable rental homes.
- Protecting rental homes, supporting people who rent and reducing housing speculation.
- Developing City-owned land and expediting delivery of new, permanently affordable rental homes within transit-oriented and complete communities.
- Transforming Toronto’s Waterfront as a catalyst for support of social, economic and cultural growth.
- Implementing a new Rental Housing Supply Incentives program.
- Expanding missing middle housing options and increasing project certainty.
- Optimizing land use and simplifying the planning approvals process to increase purpose-built rental supply in apartment neighbourhood zones.
The announcement took place at 1555-1575 Queen St. E., a Toronto Community Housing site that is under construction to create new affordable, market rental and RGI housing will be created, in addition to the replacement of RGI units. The city provided land and financial incentives for this project.