Ontario municipalities share in $10M from Building Faster Fund
For more Ontario municipalities will share in more than $10 million in provincial funding after making progress against their 2023 housing targets.
The money is being provided through the province’s Building Faster Fund.
At $5.2 million, Pickering will receive more than half of the total allocation. Premier Doug Ford announced on March 13 that the city exceeded its 2023 housing target, breaking ground on a total of 1,502 new housing units last year.
“Pickering is getting it done on housing and we are proud to reward them for their success,” Ford said. “I’m so proud of Mayor Kevin Ashe and his council colleagues for exceeding their housing targets last year. My challenge to Mayor Ashe and to every mayor in Ontario is to get even more homes built in the coming years so we can make life more affordable and keep the dream of homeownership alive for families across the province. We’ll be there to support you every step of the way.”
On March 14, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Paul Calandra that Guelph would receive just shy of $4.7 million worth of funding after the city broke ground on nearly 1,300 new housing units last year.
“The provincial Building Faster Fund will help Guelph address the housing crisis in our community,” said Mayor Cam Guthrie. “Our continued desire to work collaboratively with upper levels of government to ensure policies, programs and tools are available to get shovels in the ground faster and increase housing supply is proving to work well for our city.”
Sharing in the remainder of the funding were Sarnia and North Bay, both of which received $400,000 for their efforts.
Both exceeded their 2023 housing targets, with North Bay building 202 new housing units last year, and Sarnia 254.
Announced in August 2023, the Building Faster Fund is a three-year, $1.2 billion program that is designed to encourage municipalities to address the housing supply crisis. The fund rewards municipalities that make significant progress against their targets by providing funding for housing-enabling and community-enabling infrastructure. Funding is provided to municipalities that have reached at least 80 percent of their provincially assigned housing target for the year with increased funding for municipalities that exceed their target.
Any unspent funding from the Building Faster Fund will be made available for housing-enabling infrastructure to all municipalities, including those that have already received funding as a result of reaching their targets, through an application process. In addition, ten per cent – or $120 million – of the Building Faster Fund is being set aside for small, rural and northern municipalities to help build housing-enabling infrastructure and prioritize projects that speed up the increase of housing supply.