Feds to develop six surplus properties into 2,800 new homes
The federal government announced on November 7 that it will develop six surplus properties into more than 2,800 new homes.
Through agreements with developers, Canada Lands Company will help deliver the housing projects on lands in Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and St. John’s by March 2024.
Canada Lands Company also announced a new minimum affordable housing target of 20% across projects in its pipeline. The requirement would apply where a municipal minimum requirement for affordable housing is lower or does not already exist.
"This will mean around 5,300 affordable homes in the next five years, which is twice as many as in the last 30 years," Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said at a news conference in Ottawa. "This is a significant acceleration of providing affordable homes to Canadians but we think — and we know — there is more we can do."
With the announcement, the government says Canada Lands Company is now on track to support the construction of more than 29,200 new homes over the next six years.
As work continues to identify further assets that can be repurposed for housing, the federal government says it intends to introduce further measures to speed up this process and to identify more opportunities to build more housing.
It has pledged to continue working with provincial, territorial, municipal and Indigenous governments to build housing.
Canada Lands Company, meanwhile, is a self-financing, federal Crown corporation that specializes in real-estate development and attractions management. It acquires strategic surplus properties from federal departments and agencies at fair market value, then develops, manages, or sells them to developers to build housing.
Since 1995, the corporation has been effectively reintegrating and repurposing underused Government of Canada properties into local communities. Today it has a national portfolio of 23 real estate projects, with 430 hectares currently in development.
Between 2016 and 2023, Canada Lands Company has repurposed previously underused federal properties to enable over 10,300 new homes. Of this, more than 1,100 affordable homes were created through land sales supported by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation programs.