Housing targets at risk as Burlington loses out on millions of funding dollars
Published February 28, 2024 at 5:12 pm
Burlington has missed out on millions of dollars in grants — money needed to build and maintain infrastructure — because it has been unable to meet Provincial homebuilding criteria.
As a result, the City fears its pledge to build 29,000 housing units by 2031 is now at risk.
Queen’s Park broke the news to Burlington in a letter indicating the grants won’t be forthcoming because the City failed to meet its target of 2,127 housing starts in 2023. At just 584 starts Burlington achieved just 27 per cent of its goal last year, well below the percentage needed to qualify for the grants.
Mayor Marianne Meed Ward says the lack of funds jeopardizes Burlington’s ability to meet its long-term housing pledge because it will not be able to supply the infrastructure needed for growth such as road building and maintenance, transit expansion, and amenities such as community centres.
In a response letter sent yesterday (Feb. 27) to Paul Calandra, Ontario’s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the mayor again questioned the Provincial government’s criteria that determines homebuilding progress.
She points out that the Province uses data collected by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation that looks solely at housing starts. As the name implies, housing starts are units that have been initiated or have had the foundation poured and don’t take into account projects that have been approved, are ongoing or completed.
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Burlington maintains that using housing starts as the measuring stick is unfair because the municipality has no control over how long it takes for a builder to complete a job once it starts. The City believes the funding should be tied to the number of housing plans that have been approved and have had permits issued.
Burlington says it has issued 4,256 permits most of which have not been acted on by builders. As well, the City claims that 41,612 more units are in the pipeline awaiting to be approved.
In her letter, the mayor goes on to say if the funding formula is not changed, Burlington will continue to miss out on the grants that come from the Building Faster Fund.
“This is due to the nature of our current growth, which is multi-residential high density,” the mayor states in her letter. “We have already developed within our urban boundary on greenfield development and naturally, high-rise buildings take much longer to build than
single-family homes. Thus, it is predictable that we will not meet the targets for several years before thousands of units will come online.”
Burlington’s ability to meet quotas has been in question since last year when the West End Home Builders’ Association first signalled that the City’s track record on building approvals has been traditionally drawn out and difficult for builders to achieve.
In December, inhalton.com also wrote about the potential for Burlington to miss out on the grants based on its 2023 performance. Missing out on the grants was also acknowledged for the first time by the mayor during an appearance on TVO last week.
While her letter to Calandra initially points out that the lack of funding puts Burlington’s housing pledge “at risk”, she later walks back the statement saying the City is still fully committed to meeting its housing pledge and achieving the 2031 targets.
Earlier this week the City of Brampton reaped the benefits of meeting its housing targets when it received $25.5 million from the Building Faster Fund.
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