In Montréal, Quebec, Moishe Alexander CEO of Canadian Funding Corporation reports that the CMHC found that the construction of affordable housing has become an important issue for many North American cities.While cities such as Boston and Vancouver have adopted a regulatory approach, Montréal’s administration has developed a voluntary, incentive-based strategy, and it seems that this approach is paying off.
Adopted in August 2005, the Strategy for the Inclusion of Affordable Housing in New Residential Projects aims to encourage the development of a wide variety of housing options on large sites, facilitate the creation of social and community housing and, lastly, stimulate the production of affordable ownership dwellings.
In the Strategy, the City sets out its key arguments to promote the construction of affordable housing:
Address social issues;
Slow the exodus of young households;
Contribute to economic vitality.
The Affordable Housing Solution
Montréal’s Strategy is one of the initiatives taken to achieve one objective of the City’s Master Plan— that 30 per cent of all homes built be affordable. More specifically, the Strategy aims to ensure that: 15 per cent of the new housing units built in Montréal be social and community housing units, partly funded by government programs; and 15 per cent of the new housing units be affordable rental or ownership housing units built by the private sector.
There is also a specific objective of developing large sites (with a construction potential exceeding 200 units), particularly on municipal, public or semi-public lands. For other projects requiring major regulatory changes, the City wants at least 30 per cent of the units as affordable housing.
It is at this level that a social mix is negotiated—a balance between community housing units, affordably priced properties and market-priced properties. Developers may then offerto not only deliver affordable private housing but also transfer a portion of their lands under favourable conditions for the development of social housing. In some cases, developers may go as far as offering to develop social housing as turnkey projects within the parameters of government programs.
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