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The federal government is giving Edmonton $175 million to spur the construction of thousands of more homes in the next three years.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced funding to fast-track 5,200 more housing units — the majority being private market housing — flanked by Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi and Edmonton Centre MP Randy Boissonnault at a news conference Wednesday. The city will use this federal Housing Accelerator funding to speed up development, lower the cost of infill, make land available for homes and infrastructure and affordable housing, and encourage more multi-unit, middle-class, transit-oriented housing and secondary suites among other changes, according to a new city website.

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Up to 1,900 units, or just over one-third, are expected to be “affordable housing,” another city website states. No definition of affordability is provided.

Trudeau said the funds for Edmonton will create more housing options in the city, including more rentals, affordable apartments, and housing near university and college campuses.

“One of the challenges we’re facing right now with this housing crisis is over the past decades the federal governments of different stripes stepped back from the business of ensuring that housing was properly built right across the country in affordable ways, meeting the supply needs, meeting the growth of the country,” he said at the news conference.

While the federal government has multiple different “affordable” housing construction programs that funded new homes in recent years, Trudeau said they needed to do more: “We are changing the way housing gets built in this country, and that can only happen when different orders of government are fully working together.”

The funding announcement comes as city council approved an updated affordable housing strategy at city hall Wednesday. Among other items, city staff will develop a new landlord registry and research ways to protect Alberta renters and provide education to renters and landlords.

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It also comes one day after council approved a plan that will demolish more than 500 existing low-cost affordable rental units on federal land in the Griesbach neighbourhood. The developer, federal Crown corporation Canada Lands Company, plans to redevelop the area to build more homes of varying types — both for private sale and affordable housing — as well as a new commercial area and “pocket parks” in the coming years.

Cutting red tape

The new housing construction plan springboards off changes Edmonton already has in the works.

Edmonton passed a new zoning bylaw in October that allows for more housing density — up to three storeys on any residential lot without applying for a rezoning permit. In February 2023, city council voted to phase out the higher tax category for apartments and condos.

Speaking to reporters at city hall later Wednesday, the mayor said the funding will help the city further reduce barriers and streamline permitting, and the city can find creative ways to get more homes built.

“So $175 million coming from the federal government is a significant investment that will allow us to build more housing on top of what we have already projected to be building over the next three years,” he said. “I think having this support will allow us to be more innovative and creative and reducing barriers to housing.”

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Edmonton will also provide rebates to encourage homes to be connected to the district energy system and defer the costs of sanitary sewers for affordable housing providers with the new federal dollars.

A previous round of federal funding helped Edmonton build 600 supportive housing units, the mayor said Wednesday, and he wants to see a “spectrum” of affordable homes built with this new money, from non-market to near-market, and in between.

“We are really lacking non-market housing in our city and low-cost rental units. I think that’s where we need to focus as part of not only this (funding) but also the overall effort that we’re undertaking in our city on affordable housing,” he told reporters at city hall Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Ward Nakota Isga Coun. Andrew Knack wants to know if Edmonton is ready to build enough homes with record-breaking migration into the city last year.

He made an inquiry at Wednesday’s council meeting asking for a report analyzing if enough supply is expected, an update on work being done to assess Edmonton’s housing needs, and modelling for if Edmonton has sufficient infrastructure to meet the growing population including libraries, recreation centres, bus garages and police stations.

He told Postmedia the inquiry is meant to gather information into one place so council can have a clear picture of the situation and to “make sure we fully understand the challenge before us.”

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@laurby

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