Housing unaffordability in Fredericton has 'worsened at a dramatic pace,' new report says

A new report is highlighting the growing disparity between income levels and housing costs in Fredericton, where the median home sale price has risen by 85 per cent in just five years.

In 2019, a household earning $100,000 would have been able to afford 93 per cent of properties listed that year.

Last year, that same household would have been able to afford just 29 per cent of property listings, according to Fredericton's latest housing needs assessment, conducted by consultants with Turner Drake and Partners Ltd.

"That was a real stark statistic for me because we often hear that from our residents and particularly the younger demographic that's having a hard time accessing that market," said Coun. Jason Lejeune, member of the city's affordable housing committee.

The analysis of affordability is even bleaker for households earning $60,000. In 2019 they'd have been able to afford 60 per cent of property listings, compared with just three per cent of property listings last year.

Renting has also become more expensive, with households earning $40,000 only able to afford 16 per cent of leasing opportunities last year, down from 47 per cent in 2019.

The housing needs assessment is the city's latest attempt to get a snapshot of the affordability of housing, and whether the city has enough units to keep up with demand.

It comes almost four years after an assessment in 2021 found the city needed 2,500 affordable housing units, 1,500 subsidized units, and 50 emergency shelter spaces.

"While identified in the prior assessment, issues related to affordability have worsened at a dramatic pace," the consultants say in the executive summary of the latest housing needs assessment.

The results were partly based on surveys taken of 899 people, as well as interviews and focus groups done in December and January.

Housing units needed outpacing actual starts

Census data show Fredericton's population grew eight per cent from 2016 to 2021. 

While another census hasn't yet been taken, Statistics Canada estimates Fredericton's population grew to 77,500 last year — a 14 per cent increase since 2021.

With that, the city's existing shortfall of housing stands at 3,010 units, including 2,235 units of subsidized housing, 655 units of general market-rate housing and 120 units or beds of "safety net housing" to address the homeless population.

In addition to that figure, Fredericton will need another 10,385 housing units by 2034 based on population forecasts.

That means the city will need about 1,340 units built per year for the next 10 years, however recent figures for housing starts have fallen short of that, and are even trending down.

In 2022, housing starts hit a record high of 1,299, but dipped ever since to 1,002 in 2023 and 749 just last year — the lowest they've been since 2020.

Despite the trend, Lejeune said he thinks it's "realistic" the city will be able to hit the needed number of new housing units.

"But we're going to have to move a whole lot of levers to do it, and we've started to do so."

Lejeune said recent zoning changes to allow residential housing within commercial areas and four units in homes across the city will help drive the creation of new units.

"There's no one fix to the issues that are out there, but we've got a lot of levers that we can move and pull around, so we're going to do our part."

Lejeune said the report will go to the city's planning department, and a meeting will be held with the consultants to discuss whether the city's plans align with what the housing needs assessment revealed.

"I think the good news for Fredericton is that, you know, we've done a lot in the last four years since the first housing needs assessment was done," said Ken Forrest, the city's director of planning.

"And I think we're seeing progress in some key areas, especially with, you know, leveraging some of the Housing Accelerator [Fund] money and making a lot of the zoning changes that Coun. Lejeune talked about."