Developers to get cheap land leases in Canadian homebuilding push

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government will provide low-cost leases of public land to developers and push factory construction of homes as part of what it calls a “historic” plan to alleviate Canada’s housing crisis.

Companies that agree to build affordable homes will gain access to “surplus, underused, and vacant lands” owned by the public, the government said, while providing few specific details. The prime minister’s housing strategy, published on Friday, also includes low-interest loans for homeowners who want to add basement suites or laneway houses to their properties. 

The strategy should allow the country to build about 3.9 million homes by 2031, Trudeau said at a news conference. That would exceed the 3.5 million that the Smart Prosperity Institute has estimated is needed — if provinces and local governments join the initiative with “serious ambition,” Housing Minister Sean Fraser said in an interview.

There were two other points in Canada’s history when it faced a housing shortage close to the current scale, Fraser said. One was following World War II, when soldiers returned and displaced people flooded the country; the second was a generation later, when the baby boomers came of age and needed to house their growing families.