PM announces $21.4 million to speed up new housing in Guelph

Guelph is set to receive $21.4 million to help fast-track more housing being built in the city over the next three years. 

The federal investment comes from the Housing Accelerator Fund, which is a $4 billion initiative from the government aimed at building 400,000 new homes across the country in the next 10 years.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Guelph Friday for, what he said, is his first big announcement of 2024.

“We have been working with now 20 cities across the country that have signed the Housing Accelerator agreements that rewards cities that have been forward thinking, ambitious, willing to challenge the way things used to be done, willing to challenge NIMBYism,” said Trudeau.

“This is what it’s all about, it’s getting things done in concrete ways that are going to help people.”

The new funding for Guelph means they’ll be fast-tracking about 750 new housing units in the next couple years, increasing the supply quicker. It will add towards Guelph’s overall goal of building 9,450 new homes over the next 10 years.

Guelph’s Mayor, Cam Guthrie, stood next to Trudeau during the housing announcement.

“It is $21.4 million that we are going to be getting from the Housing Accelerator Fund and I could not be more thrilled to be here today for that,” said Guthrie.

Under the new funding, the city will have more options for housing including developing missing middle housing and additional housing units on an established property, permitting people to build multiplexes higher than four storeys and allowing more than four units per residential lot.  

“There will be structural changes that we’ll be making inside city hall to make processes faster, to make policy decisions come quicker, to have infrastructure lined up and ready to go so that housing can get built faster,” said Guthrie.

Per the agreement with the Government of Canada, the City of Guelph has to try to streamline zoning bylaw approvals, look into new residential housing programs and implement a new permitting system. The city must also investigate ways to use surplus city-owned land to create more housing.

“Today’s announcement is just proof again that the federal government is at the table with municipalities like ours and like others across the country, making things happen. That is exactly what municipalities need,” added Guthrie.

In early November Federal Minister of Housing, Sean Fraser, came to the region to announce Kitchener was getting a federal investment worth 42.4 million through the Housing Accelerator Fund, which is set to build over 12,000 new houses in the next three years, with an overall goal of building 37,000 new houses in the next decade.