$8.4M announced to help Yellowknife cut housing red tape

Yellowknife will receive more than $8 million to help it eliminate barriers so housing can be built faster, the federal government and city said on Monday.

The money will go toward things like completing a housing needs assessment, updating the development incentive bylaw, streamlining the development process, promoting redevelopment of underused spaces, developing a density policy, preparing land for residential development, and developing climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. 

“With the $8.4 million that we have been allocated, we will work to address the market housing continuum from affordable housing to housing targets for the missing middle, and even consideration for student housing needs,” said deputy mayor Garett Cochrane. 

“We will work to further modernize the city’s policy and regulatory approach on housing to provide greater choice and increased affordability.”

The money comes from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Housing Accelerator Fund.

In theory, the changes funded with that cash will make it possible for more than 150 homes to be built in the city in the next three years, and 2,500 homes built over the next decade, the two governments suggested. 

Cochrane could not say how the money would be allocated across the various initiatives or where the figure of 150-plus new homes came from, but did specify the money won’t go directly toward building any new houses.

“This isn’t for direct housing construction here. This will be enabling the instruments that help get those housing projects moving,” he explained.

“What we need is bold action, fearless innovation, and we need a systemic change in how we build homes in this country,” said Michael McLeod, the NWT’s Liberal MP, at Monday’s press conference.

McLeod said systemic change for Yellowknife looks like “removing barriers to development through reduced application processes, development timelines, and increased service delivery … and it looks like the transfer of sitting on land to private owners, to enable more residential and mixed-use development opportunities.”

The federal Housing Accelerator Fund, launched this past March, is a $4-billion project that aims to help municipalities cut red tape.

Ottawa says the fund could lead to 750,000 new homes in Canada over the next 10 years.