MP Scott Atchison, the Conservative Party's housing critic, speaks with about 30 members of the local homebuilding, non-profit housing sector on Thursday morning in Medicine Hat.--News Photo Collin Gallant
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Cities could see conditions put on infrastructure grants in order to spur housing growth, the Conservative Party housing critic told an audience at a round-table meeting in Medicine Hat on Thursday.
Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre has made a major issue out of housing, calling for less bureaucracy and new private-led housing construction to address high prices and low supply.
He’s also signalled taking a stronger hand in dealing with major cities that most often receive federal dollars, but MP Scott Aitchison told a round-table meeting of housing sector officials that smaller cities could see new rules as well.
“We’ve talked about holding municipalities accountable, and especially in large centres,” he told the News following the two-hour meeting at the Medicine Hat police station’s community boardroom.
“They’ve received billions to build subways and skytrains that are surrounded by single-family detached homes. If you’re going to use taxpayer money to build expensive urban transit for high-density residential, then you better put high-density housing around it.”
“In smaller centres the message is similar … the point is that infrastructure money would be looked at through a housing lens.”
Aitchison, a former mayor of Huntsville, Ont., said that could involve a need to upsize existing systems when older pipes are replaced.
Overall, he said, trying to lower inflation by lowering government spending would be the focus of a potential Conservative government, while the private and non-profit sectors have a large role to play.
About three dozen representatives from the development, non-profit, social agency and government sectors discussed the situation in a meeting hosted by Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner MP Glen Motz, and said a host of hurdles exist to increasing their offerings.
Gifts of land, reduced fees, lower inflation, innovative housing models, were all suggested by attendees. Aitchison described the meeting as a fact finding mission.
Currently the federal government’s most direct blanket infrastructure fund for cities is the Canada Builds program, formerly known as the gas tax fund, which is worth abut $2 million per year to a city the size of Medicine Hat.
Its proceeds can be put toward roads, but also a wide array of civic infrastructure programs, similarly to city’s capital grants from the province, which administers the federal funds alongside the Alberta Local Government Fiscal Framework.
That amount has decreased, but area MLA Justin Wright argued that his government has introduced rules to intervene in federal-municipal agreements and he said that would avoid potentially onerous conditions on grant funding from Ottawa, like in the Housing Accelerator Fund.
“We’re getting an unfair share,” he said. “From a provincial standpoint we’re taking measures to protect our municipalities. … At all three levels we should stay in our lanes and pass funds to appropriate folks rather than talking everything over ourselves.”
City officials said they felt the Housing Accelerators proposal in Medicine Hat would have spurred activity, reduced costs and complications for developers. When the city was denied some federal funding, it found local sources of funds to introduce some of the measures.
Development and infrastructure managing director Pat Bohan said the city would benefit from federal partnership when land is provided for social housing projects.
To date, construction starts in 2024 are only slightly above a slow year in 2023.
Rental market data from last October shows little growth in the number of available units, but a very low vacancy rate, at 1.3 per cent, and rents that rose 10 per cent last year and 20 per cent since late 2021.
“We’re part of the solution,” Coun. Alison Van Dyke said. “Decisions have to be made at the municipal level, and the province does allow incentives and we have ways of incentivizing brownfield redevelopment (along existing utility service lines).”
Economic Development Medicine Hat offers a grant of $15,000 per new residential unit built on an existing site, as well as potential property tax forgiveness on projects that significantly boost tax assessment on infill sites
Since 2017, the City of Medicine Hat’s own long-term development plan has called on smarter, more concentrated development to manage escalating costs of renewing aging infrastructure over the next 20 years. It called for high-density and infill development to avoid taking on costs of extending new roads and water mains to new subdivisions.
