The City of Duncan will receive a total of $2.64 million from the federal Housing Accelerator Fund to help deal with issues around housing availability and affordability in the municipality.
The amount is significantly lower than the $14.8 million that was originally requested by the city last year from the HAF due to adjustments made by the grant evaluators from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which administers the $4-billion fund, to align with historic trends in Duncan.
Kyle Young, Duncan’s director of planning and sustainability, told council at its meeting on Sept. 23 that the original request of $14.8 million was based on the funding formula in the grant application, and while the city didn’t receive the amount it asked for, the good news is Duncan will get $2.64 million from the HAF. He said the city has already received the first of four instalments of $659,000.
“The general premise of this funding program is that the city undertakes a number of initiatives to accelerate the construction of new housing and, provided that the city is completing those initiatives and meeting its targets, the funding is provided [in instalments] as a reward for fulfilling those commitments,” Young said.
The goal of the HAF program is to fast track the creation of 100,000 new homes and housing units across Canada as part of the government’s plan to double the construction of homes within the next decade.
The HAF is a fairly broad funding program that could be used for a variety of initiatives that would lead to increased housing units in the city; including building affordable housing, land acquisition, fast-tracking housing approvals, and the construction of infrastructure, like water and sewer, roads, green spaces and improvements to public transit.
Young said the city has already been moving forward with a number of housing initiatives — including pre-zoning for housing, streamlining design and application requirements, and reducing development cost charges for affordable housing — and good progress has been made on them.
He said it’s estimated that approximately $200,000 is needed to complete these housing initiatives, and the remaining $2.4 million can be spent on a variety of infrastructure projects, including affordable housing, roads, drinking water and sidewalks.
Coun. Tom Duncan asked if the city plans to set aside funding for sewer and water mains with the HAF money.
“For years, we’ve been trying to figure out what we still need to replace in the ground,” he said.
Young said it’s up to council to determine the priorities for the funding from the HAF, and suggested council look at its five-year capital plan.
“Sometimes things come in a little higher than we anticipated, so those could be the basis for determining your priorities for use of this funding,” he said.
“The reality is that if we looked at all the water, sewer, storm, roads and parks projects, there’s tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure funding needed for them, so this is really just a drop in the bucket.”
