London, Ont. mayor Josh Morgan laid out his ideas for spending the $74 million being given to the city by the federal government for housing .

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that London will receive the money as part of the Housing Accelerator Fund in exchange for the city’s agreement to pursue a series of measures — including a change to local zoning rules that should make it easier to build more rental units.

The city was projected to build 9,400 units over the next three years, but with the influx of cash they’re moving it up to 11,600, said Morgan.

There are four areas that he identified as key investments to help tackle the housing crisis within the city with the money:

• Speeding up the permit process.
• Building new affordable and market-rate homes.
• Investing in housing related infrastructure.
• Looking at converting unused commercial spaces downtown into residential units.

The Housing Accelerator Fund was first announced during the Liberal’s 2021 election campaign and introduced in the 2022 federal budget. It allocates $4 billion in funding until 2026-27 to build new homes in cities.

London needs more than just affordable housing

Reviewing the process to apply for building permits and identifying inefficiencies is high on Morgan’s list. He said analyzing where in the process applicants are being held up and how the city can keep that from happening will help fast-track the process.

“This isn’t just about building new homes, it’s about building new homes faster,” Morgan said.

Continuing to invest in affordable housing units like the buildings at 403 Thompson Road, 345 Sylvan Street, 18 Elm Street and Joan’s Place on Dundas is also a piece of the puzzle.

This will be done through partnerships with local non-profits and the building sector, something he said worked in the past. Morgan added they also need to increase the number of market-rate rental units in the city.

“We have thousands of people coming to this city for jobs or moving away from even higher cost jurisdictions like the GTA so we have tremendous pressure on our market here — it’s also a supply issue,” he said.

Another limiting factor he said they’re tackling is that some parts of the city don’t have the proper infrastructure to support new housing. For example, areas around Fanshawe College don’t have the sewer capacity to handle more units being built to house the influx of international students.

He said there are proposals to build high density developments in the works that are currently on hold because of similar issues across London.

“Some of that money can be used to unlock developments that are already waiting,” he said.

Finally, Morgan said the downtown core has many empty office buildings and the funds could be used to create an incentive program to subsidize developers who pledge to turn offices into residential apartments and condos.

In addition to these four points, Morgan said that council is also looking into new incentive programs with the funds to encourage developers to build downtown transit corridors and transit villages while still keeping some of the developments affordable for lower-income renters.

“We can actually put some strings on those incentive and say ‘we need some affordability within some of the units you’re creating.’

Source: CBC News – Michael Lacasse