The City of Richmond will get $35.9 million dollars from the federal government to help speed up housing builds.
This is supposed to help build 1,000 units of housing in Richmond over the next three years, and 3,100 over the next decade.
The funding is intended to cut red tape and up-staff at the City of Richmond to deal with housing developments faster.
Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie said the Housing Accelerator Fund is not meant for particular projects, rather it will help the process of approving different types of housing, including supportive housing, non-market rentals and affordable housing.
“The funding is going to help us implement eight different initiatives and strategies to fast-track the creation of those additional new housing units,” Brodie said.
He noted the traditional approach, in the 1980s and 1990s, was for the federal government to build housing such as co-operative housing.
“This is different, this is to talk about our processes – how do we fast-track things, what kind of programs do we have,” Brodie said. This might include parking reductions near transit and implementing digital processes for development applications.
“It is a different approach that the federal government is taking and we, at the city, are very pleased to be part of it,” Brodie said.
The announcement was made on Monday morning at Richmond City Hall by Richmond Centre MP Wilson Miao and Steveston-Richmond East MP Parm Bains.
In 2022, the Canadian Housing and Mortgage Corporation estimated 3.8 million new homes were needed across Canada to bring back housing affordability.
In Richmond, an average condo costs $744,000 in December, according to the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board, while the average cost of a detached home was mroe than $2.1 million.
