The federal government, along with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), has released a catalog of standardized home designs to help ease Canada's housing crisis.
Featuring 50 turnkey projects, including multiplexes, row houses and laneway houses that are designed to fit into existing neighbourhoods, the plans are intended to launch more projects by reducing planning and bureaucratic red tape.
“They provide an advantage to homeowners, builders and municipalities,” said Daniel Rubenstein, client solutions consultant for CMHC, in the report.
“It allows them to skip much of the design process and go straight to finalizing the site-specific design.”
Detailed information includes cost estimates for each project, improved layouts, climate resilience recommendations, and materials needed for construction.
While costs vary by region, CMHC estimates that building additional housing in Calgary could cost as little as $275,000, while a six-unit apartment in Toronto could cost as much as $1.9 million.
Overall, CMHC estimates that the six-unit building in Yellowknife is the most expensive project, with a projected cost of up to $5.7 million, compared to the cheapest estimates for supportive housing in Saskatoon with a price tag of just $205,000.
Drawing inspiration from CMHC's post-war housing project catalogs of the 1940s and 1970s, the modernized version is part of Prime Minister Mark Carney's multibillion-dollar plan to address Canada's housing crisis, which includes opening up federal lands to construction and creating a new agency, Build Canada Homes (BCH), to oversee federal housing programs.
To date, cities across the country have pre-reviewed projects to facilitate approval, including major centers such as Vancouver, Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto, Halifax and Kitchener-Waterloo.
“Like many cities across Canada, Waterloo is growing rapidly and housing supply must keep pace,” Waterloo MP Bardish Chagger said in a press release. “The Housing Design Catalog provides a complete set of tools to quickly create homes in existing neighborhoods—homes that meet a family's needs, whether it's an additional home for a family member or a six-unit home in the city center.”
Carney's plan is not without its detractors, however. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said last month that the federal government should ditch the Liberal plan and implement its own, which includes incentives for municipalities to speed up permitting and cut construction costs.
Meanwhile, RBC Housing Policy Director Stephanie Shevchuk
that the BCH relies on the collaboration of all levels of government and may face uncertain economic headwinds.
“However, success depends on its ability to bring partners together to quickly execute and achieve its ambitious goals against the backdrop of an uncertain economic environment,” she wrote. “A lack of agreement or clarity on how to move forward together will reduce trust and hamper results, potentially creating even greater problems.”
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