Moncton, Fredericton rank high in report on Canadian housing starts
The cities did particularly well on list of apartment starts
A new national report says two New Brunswick cities are seeing a lot of development.
The report from PLACE Centre shows that Moncton and Fredericton rank high on total housing starts per 1,000 residents.
The PLACE Centre is part of a research network at the University of Ottawa called the Smart Prosperity Institute.
Moncton ranks 11th, while Fredericton is close behind at 14th.
Mike Moffatt, an economist and the founding director of PLACE Centre, said it was surprising that Moncton and Fredericton ranked so high, given the rapid population growth in Ontario.
"They're in the top 20 in Canada and that, I have to admit, came as a surprise to me and my team," said Moffatt.
"We knew a lot of Ontarians were moving out there, but we didn't quite realize how much building was going on in the two communities."
Moffatt said the report covers from July 1, 2018 to July 2024.
Moncton and Fredericton also did well when the numbers were broken down into apartment unit starts and ground unit starts per capita — which Moffatt said could be single-detached units, semi-detached units or townhouses.
For apartment unit starts, Moncton ranked 10th and Fredericton 16th. Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax ranked similarly at 15th, 17th and 25th respectively.
For ground unit starts, Moncton came in at 31 and Fredericton at 35.
Moffatt said it was particularly surprising that the two New Brunswick cities did so well on the apartment front. He said British Columbia is good at building highrises and Alberta is better at building larger, family-sized units, and his team expected New Brunswick to look more like Alberta.
Moffatt said the next step for the project is to see why each city ranked where it did. For New Brunswick, he said, one potential factor is the low taxes on development relative to Ontario.
"This is why we did this. We wanted to sort of see what communities were doing well, and then [the] next step is seeing what we can learn out here in Ontario from Moncton and from Fredericton to help our cities compete."
On Wednesday, the New Brunswick government introduced a rent cap bill that will limit residential rent increases to three per cent a year starting on Feb. 1.
Moffatt said there is a need to prevent rents from getting out of control, but rent caps can limit apartment construction. He said the province and municipalities will need to speed up approval processes, keep taxes on development low and take other measures to create the conditions for continued development.
"I think they can continue to build apartments at this rate, with this rent cap, but they do need to make sure all those other conditions are in place," said Moffatt.
"If these things are made too restrictive, they absolutely will reduce housing starts. But I don't anticipate that's the case here."
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With files from Information Morning Fredericton