Calgary housing developers optimistic about Carney's strategy, ready to see action

Hearing the new Liberal government tout an ambitious housing plan on the campaign trail has been music to the ears of developers working in the sector across Canada.

But in Calgary, where accelerated population growth in recent years has hit the city during a national housing crisis, optimism for the federal strategy is tempered by desire to see more details about how its plan will play out on the ground.

CBC News spoke with several leaders in Calgary's affordable housing sector who expressed hope for the strategy that Prime Minister Mark Carney has laid out.

Attainable Homes Calgary President and CEO Jaydan Tait sees a lot to be optimistic about in the new plan, and while the Liberal Party formed a minority government that may not last a full term, he's confident there's progress the government can make quickly.

"The number one thing this government could do right now is release the $10 billion in low-cost financing to the producers of affordable housing," Tait said. "They could do that immediately at below-market, very attractive interest rates that could get us building."

But he noted that the strategy is only an idea until Ottawa can tell developers more about when and how they'll be able to access funding.

New federal strategy

In March, Carney unveiled his housing plan which promised to double the number of homes built annually to nearly 500,000, create an organization called Build Canada Homes to act as a developer overseeing affordable housing construction, and offer billions of dollars in low-cost financing and grants.

Exceptional population growth through 2023 and 2024 led Alberta's population to recently hit five million people. Calgary has increased its efforts to build affordable housing, amid its population growth, after a city report found one in five households struggled to afford housing costs in 2021.

Now, the city has taken an aggressive approach to offering more housing, as its 2024 housing review found it recorded the highest number of housing starts in Canada last year, surpassing 20,000 units for the first time.

The new federal strategy offers funding designed to build affordable homes more quickly, and BILD Calgary Region CEO Brian Hahn said he wants to see government policy take a holistic approach to ensure buyers and renters at all wage levels have better access to housing.

"If you only deal with one rung of that ladder, you create a logjam there. So it's important that whatever policy tools are applied, apply across the entire housing continuum," Hahn said.

Hahn pointed to the federal strategy's commitment to cut municipal development charges in half as a "big game-changer," because the fees represent a meaningful portion of a new home's cost.

But Calgary's mayor isn't as enthusiastic about the idea.

Municipalities charge these fees to housing developers, and the funding is used to cover infrastructure costs like roads, transit, water, sewers and emergency services. Mayor Jyoti Gondek warned the cut would leave Calgarians to pick up the slack and pay more in taxes to keep critical infrastructure properly funded.

"Municipalities have very few tools to raise revenue. Alongside levies, Calgary relies on property taxes, user fees and government transfers to provide safe, reliable and affordable services," Gondek wrote in a blog post, earlier this month.

Building out housing supply

Less than five per cent of all housing in Canada is operated in the public and "non-market sector," where rent isn't set by market forces, according to a 2021 paper commissioned by the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Tait said he'd like to see Ottawa take action on that figure and double the number of government-owned affordable units across the country. To further build out supply, Tait argued there's a "hyper-abundance" of publicly-owned land in Canada that could be released at zero cost to developers like his organization to be converted into affordable housing units.

Sarah Woodgate, Calgary Housing's president and CEO, said she'd also like to see the federal government bolster Canada's housing supply by helping organizations like hers purchase housing. 

"In this current uncertain market, there is a window to provide capital funds for organizations like us to go out and buy housing that has been built or that is going to be built and secure it for perpetual affordable housing," Woodgate said.

She'd also like to see Canada's Rental Protection Fund up and running. The program helps community housing groups acquire apartment buildings to preserve the affordability of rent in those units. The program was unveiled as part of the country's housing plan last year.

Targeted housing supports

Woodgate pointed to Canada Housing Benefit as another federal program she thinks is vital.

The program is set to expire in 2027-28, and Woodgate argued the federal government should commit to renewing it, because its work to offer financial support for families in need is more vital now than when it was created.

Carney's strategy aims to offer support to specific groups, including targeting funding for students and seniors, as well as more support for Indigenous housing.

Shane Gauthier, CEO of the Aboriginal Friendship Centre of Calgary, which works to provide permanent supportive housing, said he supports these efforts as Indigenous people are over-represented in Canada's homeless population, but wants to see the federal government partner with existing Indigenous-led groups that better understand the cultural and historical contexts around the issue.

"For us, this isn't an abstract issue; it's about our relatives, our community members, who deserve the safety, dignity, and cultural connection that a stable home provides," Gauther said.

Streamlining development

Developers across Calgary pointed to streamlining the process to deliver affordable housing as crucial to improving the country's housing supply.

Canada's system is currently slow and piecemeal, said Woodgate, who advocates for an approach that would see the new Liberal government channel funding through experienced local housing providers that are better positioned to deliver the development needed in their local contexts.

 "Let's fund results, and not create new red tape. We already know how to build, and we need to get the capital out," Woodgate said.

Mike Meldrum, CEO of the non-profit Calgary Affordable Housing Foundation which launched this year, added that all levels of government should coordinate funding mechanisms like grants and timelines so developers can more easily stack funding. The result would offer a level of certainty for developers who want to build housing that's offered below market value.

"We can see that at times there is a waste of energy when everybody's worrying about getting credit and developing their own granting programs with their own criteria. It would be nice to see that be streamlined," said Meldrum.

Mayoral candidates on federal strategy

The new federal government and its housing strategy arrives during a year where Calgarians will go to the polls a second time to vote in new municipal leadership. And along with Gondek's concern about cuts to development fees, some of the city's other mayoral candidates called for ways that Ottawa can offer more aid to Calgary's affordable housing.

Communities First mayoral candidate Sonya Sharp also wants more clarity about what the cuts to development fees will mean in Calgary, as its funding toward infrastructure is needed in redeveloping established neighbourhoods like Bowness and Altadore.

She added that Ottawa would be more helpful setting goals for the provinces and municipalities to act on, because she argued housing strategies that will help in Toronto and Vancouver won't necessarily work in Calgary.

"They should be setting targets. They should be establishing a funding pool for infrastructure and actually let the local government work with industry and province to deliver it," Sharp said, adding she'd also like to see all levels of government convert buildings they own into affordable housing.

Brian Thiessen, The Calgary Party's mayoral candidate this fall, also wants to see more public land opened up for affordable housing, but he's skeptical of government acting as developers, as Carney's plan suggests through the Build Canada Homes entity. He said he'd like to see government instead partner with existing home builders.

But Thiessen identifies another problem area that could be a choke point in housing progress.

"If anything holds us back and prevents them in the next few years, it'll be the labour supply," Thiessen said.

A significant number of skilled workers are needed, and Thiessen said he'd like to see more government funding going to schools like SAIT to train workers in the trades.

Mayoral candidate Jeromy Farkas is in strong support of Carney's plan to cut development fees, but only if the burden doesn't fall on taxpayers to pick up the bill. He argues Ottawa has to offset cuts to development fees with dollar-for-dollar infrastructure funding for municipalities.

"It makes no sense to cut one place and actually ask taxpayers to be able to contribute for that needed infrastructure elsewhere," Farkas said.