Trudeau boosts B.C.’s housing plan with $2B in federal financing

The federal government is doubling the financing available for a British Columbia housing plan, which the prime minister called “transformative.”

Justin Trudeau was in Vancouver on Tuesday to announce that Ottawa is adding $2 billion in financing to the province’s new BC Builds initiative aimed at fast-tracking the construction of middle-income rental housing.

The prime minister called the plan “ambitious and fundamentally practical,” saying the federal funding will help create a minimum of 8,000 to 10,000 more new homes.

That number will go up as more land is secured, Trudeau said, adding the new units won’t be limited to one and two bedrooms.

“These will be units of all sizes, including up to three or four bedrooms, the kind of places where families can grow and they can call home,” he said.

The money comes on top of $2 billion in provincial funding for low-cost financing for developers to fast-track affordable rental housing on land that’s underused or owned by government, communities or non-profit organizations. B.C. is also committing $950 million to ensure units are available at belowmarket rates.

The province has so far identified 20 sites for possible construction.

The new homes will be available to families based on their income on a community-by-community basis, Trudeau said, calling it “truly targeted for the middle class.”

“What you’re doing here is transformative,” the prime minister said, flanked by B.C. Premier David Eby and Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, as they announced the funding on the rooftop of a condominium at the University of B.C. campus.

“And I am hoping that other provinces take careful note of the leadership that you’ve shown,” he said, singling out Eby and his government.

“These are the things we need right across the country.”

Trudeau likened B.C. to the “canary in the coal mine for the problems we’re seeing across the country around housing affordability.”

He said housing prices started rising in the province decades ago, and successive governments “ignored those warnings,” while investors were buying up homes.

The BC Builds program demonstrates how to build homes for people to live in, “not just pad investor portfolios,” the prime minister said.

Eby thanked Trudeau, saying the federal funding will help the province “change the direction of housing” through the model announced last week.

“What the prime minister has announced today, $2 billion in additional funding for the BC Builds program, will be transformational for thousands of families in British Columbia that are desperate for housing,” he said.

“They can afford housing, they just need it to be available. This money will make it available for them.”

Eby also announced the fourth site slated for development under the program, describing it as a “beautiful new co-op” in Vancouver’s Yaletown neighbourhood with construction expected to start this summer on the 112-unit building.

A minimum of 20 per cent of those units must be rented out at 20 per cent below the market rate, says a joint news release from the B.C. and federal gov’t.