Ontario Construction News staff wrtier
The Government of Canada and the City of Peterborough have announced a agreement to fast-track the construction of 356 new homes over the next three years, part of the second round of funding from the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF). The deal lays the groundwork for construction of an additional 2,531 homes over the next decade.
Launched in March 2023, the Housing Accelerator Fund is a $4.4 billion initiative aimed at helping local governments overcome obstacles to housing development.
Peterborough’s housing action plan has seven key initiatives including reducing parking requirements to lower development costs, facilitating higher-density housing and addressing exclusionary zoning practices.
The plan also encourages the development of medium-density housing in low-density residential areas and promotes the use of vacant or underused public land for affordable housing projects. Additionally, the implementation of a public-facing e-permitting portal is aimed at streamlining the approval process and increasing efficiency.
The City of Peterborough exceeded 2024’s housing targets, issuing permits for 515 housing units to residential construction developers in 2024, which is over the provincial target of 392 housing starts by more than 30 per cent.
Recommendations from the Mayor’s Task Force on Housing fall under three themes: Speeding up Development, Cutting the Cost of Building Housing, and Partnerships and Advocacy.
They include:
- Guarantee an approval timeline of one year from pre-consultation to full land use approval (zoning and site plan), for all non-profit housing, and multi-unit residential developments proposing a minimum of 25 new dwellings (minimum 10 dwellings in the Central Area).
- Direct staff to identify, by April 2025, all studies, reports, plans and drawings that the city currently requires for the development approval process that are within municipal discretion to impose.
- Work with the development industry to establish mutually acceptable lapse provisions for development approvals to encourage timely construction of approved developments.
- Implement firm application processing timelines, making live development approval status information publicly available on the website and by providing quarterly development approval status reports to Council beginning in the second quarter of 2025.
- Establish appropriate as-of-right residential zoning to promote missing middle residential development by April 2025.
- Direct staff to work with the development community to identify, prioritize, and pre-zone underused properties within the City’s Strategic Growth Areas.
- Return to requiring sidewalks on only one side of local streets in subdivisions to help reduce the cost of new development and the ongoing municipal cost of maintaining infrastructure.
- Review By-laws 21-074 and 17-121 to reduce the development cost associated with compensating for tree removals.
- Review engineering fees and implement a sliding scale instead of a flat fee to recognize review process efficiencies gained with larger developments, and review the City’s Development Security Collection and Release procedures to ensure timely release of funds to development proponents.
- Amend City Engineering Standards to permit 2-stage curbs in new development.
- Financially incentivize multi-unit residential development projects, with particular emphasis on projects incorporating affordable housing opportunities.
- Prioritize public-private, public-non-profit and Indigenous partnerships.
- Seek sustained funding from all levels of government to support incentive programs for affordable housing and Indigenous non-market housing.
- Lobby all major Federal political parties to commit to modernizing the Federal HST rebate on the purchase of a new home which is not available to homes priced $450,000 or more.
For more information on the Housing Accelerator Fund and to track the progress of housing initiatives, visit www.placetocallhome.ca.