After a five-year journey, St. Catharines Council has approved the creation of a new group that aims to fast-track housing development.
Last night, St. Catharines Council approved the creation of a 'Municipal Development Corporation', which the city is hoping will be a strategic tool in delivering and implementing funding coming from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Housing Accelerator Fund.
Mayor Mat Siscoe says work has started already on the arms-length group, with members of for-profit and non-for-profit organizations sitting on the board to look into how unused municipal pieces of property can be developed into housing.
"We have established an initial board and I've said I want a first meeting in the next week or two. The benefit of this, if we do it properly, and there's lots of examples across the country from municipalities who have done this and have been able to generate revenue. If we do it properly, it will be self funding."
The City was awarded $25 million in January from the feds to implement initiatives and projects to boost the housing supply in St. Catharines.
One of the initiatives identified was the establishment of the 'Municipal Development Corporation', which will be funded through that investment for the first few years.
The Government of Canada announced details about the new Housing Accelerator Fund in March of 2023.
The $4 billion fund is meant to support municipalities with new and transformational change to help build 100,000 new homes in Canada by September 2026.