St. Catharines awarded $2.3M in provincial funding for meeting housing targets

The provincial government has awarded the City of St. Catharines with over $2-million for meeting targets set by the Build Faster Fund.

“This is fantastic news for the city of St. Catharines,” said St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe. “It builds on our pledge to achieve or exceed the provincial housing target of 11,000 homes that we set last year, to be built by 2031.”

The Build Faster Fund is a three-year, $1.2-billion housing stimulus set by the province  with a goal of building 1.5 million new homes by 2031.

City’s that reach 80 per cent of the prescribed target set out by the province become eligible to receive a portion of the funding — and those that exceed it can receive a bonus.

“The city will use these funds to tackle our infrastructural obstacles allowing, the development community to sustain the momentum in constructing housing in St. Catharines.

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Last week, Milton and other cities received similar funding to help build infrastructure such as roads and sewers to make way for housing.

St. Catharines received its check for breaking ground on 648 new housing units last year, with new multi-family units going up in the city.

Housing Minister Paul Calandra called the Niagara city an example for others.

He says Hamilton is meeting its targets to get some infrastructure funding, but shouldn’t be held down in its debate over whether to build housing in a parking lot in Stoney Creek, something that has divided the city.

In St. Catharines, the mayor says they’ve determined they have to “build up” to meet housing demand and says that can be done while still maintaining things like parking.

“I’ve identified municipal parking as our first target. Not necessarily to eliminate the parking but to build podiums that you can put housing on top of with a public parking element,” said Siscoe.

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“There are ways to get around these issues that don’t necessarily have to put one part of the community against another part of the community.”

Calandra says this is part of the need for cities to meet the growing housing demand.

He also had a message for cities like Burlington, that aren’t getting any government handouts for housing.

“Every community around Burlington seems to be able to meet their targets with the exception of Mississauga and Burlington and the common denominator seems to be costs and mayors who don’t want to put shovels in the ground. I have no time for it. We’ll remove the obstacles and get shovels in the ground no matter what it takes.”

Burlington’s mayor Marianne Meed Ward says other cities are not meeting their targets and it’s not a Burlington-specific issue.

The city is adding thousands of units to its development pipeline and the province should re-evaluate the qualifications for money from the housing fund.