The City of Peterborough reports permits were issued to build 435 housing units in 2023, exceeding the city’s provincial target for the year.
The Ontario government had assigned a target of 345 housing starts for the city.
In November, city council endorsed the Municipal Housing pledge with a goal of building 4,700 new units by 2031. Ontario aims to build 1.5 million new homes by 2031.
The endorsement enables the city to access Ontario’s $1.2-billion Building Better Faster fund, set aside to help municipalities build new homes.
The city says its annual housing start target increases to 392 in 2024 and 470 in 2025.
“Exceeding the provincial housing target demonstrates the city’s commitment to doing everything in its power to ensure the local building industry will achieve the provincial housing targets,” Mayor Jeff Leal said.
“More importantly, each of those housing unit starts means more homes in our community for individuals and families. We need more housing across the entire spectrum of housing. We are committed to doing what we can to encourage and promote the construction of new housing.”
Peterborough-Kawartha MPP Dave Smith admits he was surprised the city surpassed the 2023 target since midway through the year the starts were not even at 50 per cent.
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“It looked like they weren’t even going to come close to actually meeting the target so we know there is a lot of fluctuation on it and it’s great that we hit or exceeded the target this year,” he said. “That takes the pressure off next year, but it is something we have to look at for a number of years.”
Dean Findlay, the city’s building services director, notes a clerical error may have contributed to the lower reported housing starts during the first half of 2023.
“We’ve made some changes and tweaks to our different folder types and that caused us a little bit of a reporting issue in the middle of last year,” he said. “… construction is cyclical and it’s almost impossible to figure out how things are going to trend. We did see a very, very slow start to the year and I think almost everyone agrees that had a lot to do with the interest rates.”
In late October Leal launched a new housing task force consisting of housing development professionals to provide input to encourage and promote housing construction.
Members of the task force include:
- Paul Bennett, Ashburnham Realty
- Chelsea Combot, Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services
- Brian Fenton, Peterborough Homes
- Hans Jain, Atria Development Corp.
- Hope Lee, Peterborough Housing Corp.
- Rebecca Schillemat, Peterborough and the Kawarthas Home Builders Association
- Brad Smith, AON Inc.
- Susan Zambonin, Habitat for Humanity Peterborough & Kawartha Region
By mid 2024, the task force is expected to present a final report to Leal with recommendations on actions the city can take to reach its target in seven years.
“Thank you to each of the members of the Mayor’s Task Force for Housing Creation for sharing their time and expertise on this critical issue for our community,” said Leal. “The members of this task force have considerable experience building housing and are in the field each and every day — they are well-placed to make helpful recommendations.”
The city also created a new dedicated customer service called “Plan-Build Peterborough” to assist and expedite planning and building services inquiries.
Leal notes the challenge of reaching the target also includes issues such as high interest rates, inflationary prices for construction materials and the labour market.
“Housing is essential for the health of individuals, families and communities,” said Leal. “We need to find new ways to encourage housing construction given the current conditions in Ontario and across Canada.”
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