Mount Pearl gets $6.1M federal boost to speed up new housing construction

The City of Mount Pearl is getting in on a federal program aimed at quickening the pace of building more housing, but there's still planning to do before shovels hit the ground.

In a news conference outside city hall on Monday, Mayor Dave Aker and federal Labour and Seniors Minister Seamus O'Regan announced Mount Pearl is getting $6.1 million from the $4-billion Housing Accelerator Fund to build 180 new housing units over the next three years. The program is run by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

There were no specifics in Monday's announcement as to what residents and prospective residents can expect in terms of types of housing units. By comparison, in October the City of St. John's outlined its plans for program money with multiplexes, tiny homes and backyard suites, depending on the neighbourhood.

But Aker said his council will be active and busy, and Mount Pearl is putting together a team dedicated to housing development. 

"The active word there is 'plan,' and that's exactly what we're going to be doing through a municipal plan review, is considering those options," he said.

"We're looking for that missing middle. How that plays out will take a bit of time, will take a bit of vision but ultimately it allows you, within the same footprint, by working with public transit, will enable people to live in a fine community and work within the region."

Aker and O'Regan said the funding and the city's renewed focus on housing planning and policy changes will also help spur the construction of 2,000 homes in the city over the next 10 years. Where they will go and what they will be is still unclear, but O'Regan said the city is reviewing its plans to reduce exclusionary zoning, effectively changing the number of homes allowed to be built on a single lot to increase density.

The centre of the city and Kenmount Hill are on the radar for that change. 

The city will also speed up permit approvals and in some cases waive permit fees, offer incentives to builders for affordable housing and repurpose some city land for duplex and multiplex housing builds. 

"This is big," O'Regan said. 

Aker said the demand for homes in Mount Pearl is growing. 

"Changing demographics, we're seeing a lot of people now lining up who want to have homes … next to mass transit, public transportation. Newcomers are coming into our city, as well as to our country, and they don't necessarily do things the way that we do, they didn't live the way we have in the past," he said.

"Our seniors are getting older. They want to downsize. We're looking for housing options for families and the like. So some of the reconsideration here through the processes and municipal plan review, that will result at the end of the day [in] a new assessment in what the city needs for its housing stock."

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