Grants, roads and 'red tape' cuts part of Moncton's plan with $15M federal housing funds

Moncton will receive more than $15 million from the federal government over three years, moneythe city says should result in almost 500 more housing units being built in the city.

"Today is a fabulous day," Moncton Mayor Dawn Arnold said after a news conference in the city hall lobby Thursday morning.

The money will be used for various grant programs for home builders, tohelp cover the cost of building new roads to open areas for development, and to ease the development approval process.

The funding was expected after council votes last month and on Monday, but the amount was almost $2 million morethan previously described and more details were released about how it will be used.

The city applied forthe funding through the housing accelerator fund.The$4-billion program introduced in last year's federal budget runs until 2026-27 and is intended to speed housing construction across the country.

In Moncton, the city anticipates the $15.5 million it will receive will result in construction of 490 additional housing units over three years.

Bill Budd, Moncton's director of planning and development, told reporters that city council will be asked to approve various new programs in the coming weeks and months to meet that target.

He said one grant program wouldprovide $20,000 "per door" for up to 15 units, to a total of $300,000.

"So we think in the downtownthis will accelerate up to 10 high-density projects that are currently stalled," Budd said.

He didn't name those 10 projects but said several already have planning orcity council approvals and are stalled because of higher costs to build from interest rates and other factors.

A $10,000 grant is proposed to encourage homeowners to add basement apartments or garden suites, a second housing unit on a residential lot.

The funding will also help cover the city's cost to build new roads. One area would be a street from Mountain Road near the New Brunswick Community College west into an 85-acre areawhere Shannex is building new nursing homes thatBudd said is now "landlocked."

Another area would be a new road from Harrisville Boulevard into a neighbourhood aroundcole Champlain.

"We think there's six or seven projects waiting for this infrastructure and it should take off," Budd said.

Other steps using the funding are expected to help reduce whatGinette Petitpas Taylor, the MP for MonctonRiverviewDieppe, described as red tape.

Budd said city staff will propose ways to remove barriers to construction and streamline the zoning bylaw.

"We're introducing a first phase of that at Monday's council meeting to create more as-of-right housing andavoid having to go through unnecessary discretionary approval processes," Budd said.

Statistics Canada has reported that the Moncton region is one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country.

An urban growth strategy, looking at where housing should be built in the future, forecasts the city's population will reach 116,200 by 2046, a 44 per cent increase over 2021.

But those projections were based on older figures and don't account for more recent growth.

That growth is driving home prices higher as the area has a low apartment vacancy rate and climbing rental costs.

Arnold acknowledged the money and new units wouldn't be enough to meet the demand in the community.

"Oh, it's absolutely not enough,no," she said. "But it is a really good start to get things going."

Budd said the city normally sees about 670 housing units built a year. With the funding, the city hopes this will increase about 10 per cent.

Last month, council voted on several steps the federal government required before finalizing the funding agreement.

One included directing city staff to proposeamendments to bylaws that would allow four unit-dwellingsin all residential zones across the city.

If eventually implementedit's a measure that could affect areas of the city zoned to only allow one or two units.

Moncton was among 49 communities in the province that applied for the housing accelerator funding and the first New Brunswick agreement announced.

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgssuggested to Brunswick News this monththat the province could introduce a law blocking federal housing funding from going directly to municipalities.

Asked about those comments, Moncton's mayor said she was excited that the premier was thinking about affordable housing.

"I would welcome him to match the funds that the federal government has invested today," Arnold said to reporters.

In a statement Thursday afternoon,Higgs said bypassing the provincial government isn't a solution.

Moncton says it expects the first federal payment, about 25 per cent of the total, to arrive soon.

"We'll be working closely with the city to make sure that they're going to be meeting their targets," Petitpas Taylor told reporters. If they do, further funds will be released.