Ottawa·NewCity planning staff expect Ottawa will fall far short of provincial housing targets this year, and they’re already assuming it will cost the city tens of millions of dollars in lost funding.Planning staff say there’s little chance the city will come close to provincial housing targets this yearListen to this articleEstimated 3 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Construction workers build new homes in Ottawa in June 2024. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)City planning staff expect Ottawa will fall far short of provincial housing targets this year, and they’re already assuming it will cost the city tens of millions of dollars in lost funding.That revelation came Wednesday as council’s planning and housing committee debated the 2026 draft municipal budget, which doesn’t include any revenue from the province’s Building Faster Fund (BFF).The fund requires cities to meet at least 80 per cent of targets for housing starts. Last year Ottawa fell short, reaching only 62.5 per cent of the 12,500 homes required, and the province didn’t pay out any money.This year, the city is doing better. The latest Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation data shows starts were above 7,900 as of the end of October, or 22 per cent higher than the same time last year.But Marcia Wallace, the city’s general manager of planning, development and building services, says the target this year is higher — about 15,000 housing starts — and the building season is running short.”Based on where we are right now, I don’t believe we are going to get the money,” she said. “If we look at applications that have a building permit that are in pre-construction, there’s really no chance of getting to the 80 per cent threshold.”She estimates that Ottawa could lose out on more than $30 million, money the city relies on in part to fund affordable housing projects. And it’s the last year of the program, so there’s no way for the city to make it up in the future.”I regret that they won’t give the money,” she said. “We’ve made some big improvements to the process, but of course that’s too little too late to meet these targets.”Councillors question fairnessCity councillors went further, saying housing starts are largely beyond the city’s control. It can approve developments and issue building permits, but it’s up to developers to follow through and build their projects.”We can get the permits out, but we can’t force them to build,” said Beacon Hill-Cyrville Coun. Tim Tierney.He called it frustrating. Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper agreed.”There are things that we can do to try to encourage shovels in the ground, but ultimately it is those broader market conditions, costs that the city doesn’t control,” said Leiper, who chairs council’s planning and housing committee.”Hinging tens of millions of dollars on housing starts that are out of the city’s control seems like an incoherent approach to try to encourage the creation of more housing.”Stittsville Coun. Glen Gower said if the province really wants to encourage housing it should just pay out the money — whether the city meets its targets or not.”It’s sitting there in an account, but it’s contingent on housing starts,” he said. “They should just give it to municipalities and we would be using most of it to fund affordable housing.”Wallace told councillors the city has a much better chance of getting federal funding through the Housing Accelerator Fund, which is more focused on policy changes and tracks building permits as a metric.”I’m much more optimistic about our ability to secure, this year and next year, money under the federal program,” she said.ABOUT THE AUTHORArthur White-Crummey is a reporter at CBC Ottawa. He has previously worked as a reporter in Saskatchewan covering the courts, city hall and the provincial legislature. You can reach him at arthur.white-crummey@cbc.ca.
Ottawa expects to lose out on provincial housing money for 2nd straight year
