Two years after Valérie Plante’s administration said a new housing bylaw would lead to the construction of 600 new social housing units per year, the city hasn’t seen a single one. Meanwhile, the housing affordability crisis continues to grow.
According to data released by Ensemble Montréal, the city’s official opposition, and reviewed by CBC News, there have been 150 new projects by private developers, creating a total of 7,100 housing units, since the bylaw came into effect in April 2021.
None of the units have yet been made into affordable housing, with all the developers of those projects opting instead to give Montreal financial compensation. Only 550 units are big enough to be considered family housing. Five developers ceded a piece of property to the city instead of creating affordable housing.
The money from the fees paid by developers goes into either the city’s affordable housing fund or its social housing fund. Those fees have so far amounted to a total of $24.5 million — not enough to develop a single social housing project, according to housing experts.
Any comment I can make would not be more damning than these three paragraphs. All I’ll say is either (A) increase the fees until they generate a useful amount of revenue, or (B) demand a certain amount of affordable housing to be built for every private project.