New housing starts mean $100,000 per home needed to fund infrastructure: report
BNN Bloomberg
As Canada aims to build homes faster, both the public and private sectors will need to boost spending on municipal infrastructure, a new report from the Canadian Urban Institute says.
The report, funded by the Canada Infrastructure Bank, estimated the average cost of infrastructure needed to support housing likely exceeds $100,000 for each newly built home. That includes funding for resources such as public transit, roads, water lines, schools, fire halls or recreational facilities.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. forecasts Canada will require an additional 3.5 million housing units by 2030, on top of the 2.3 million already projected to be built, to restore affordability to levels seen in 2004.
That level of increased housing starts — more than 500,000 homes annually — is equivalent to building a new city the size of Calgary each year, for seven years, noted report author Michael Fenn, Ontario's former deputy minister of municipal affairs and housing, who has also served as a municipal chief administrator in Hamilton and Burlington, Ont.
