Premier Doug Ford was in Belleville, Ont., Friday to announce $1.24 million for the city through a government home building incentive program.
Under the province’s Building Faster Fund, cities that meet their housing targets are rewarded with extra money for infrastructure projects.
“Belleville is getting it done on housing and we are proud to reward them for their success,” said Ford in a statement.
According to the province, Belleville exceeded its 2023 housing target by breaking ground on 644 new housing units last year.
The announcement comes a few weeks after Belleville declared a state of emergency following a rash of drug overdoses and asked the province for $2 million in emergency funding, in part to help build a a community hub for addictions, mental health and homelessness.
Belleville Mayor Neil Ellis has criticized the province’s response after the Ford government instead delivered $216,000 in one-time funding.
Ellis has said if the province won’t come through with the money he would ask council to find the $2 million in the city’s 2024 budget.
In a media release touting the Building Faster Fund announcement Ford said Belleville could use the money “to put towards local priorities such as the proposal to build a hub for mental health and addictions services.”
But the same provincial media release quotes Ellis as saying the city plans to reinvest the Building Better Fund money into a sewage pump station project that would allow the city to open up more land to accommodate more than 20,000 residents.
“Council, staff and residents along with the Quinte Homebuilders Association are committed to not only reaching but exceeding our annual housing targets,” Ellis is quoted as saying in the provincial release.
“We look forward to continuing to contribute to the province’s goal for new homes in the coming years.”
‘It’s deceptive, it’s misleading’
Announced last August, the Building Faster Fund is a three-year, $1.2-billion pot of money the government says is designed to encourage municipalities to address the province’s housing supply crisis.
Money is doled out to municipalities that have reached at least 80 per cent of their provincially-assigned housing target for the year with more funding given to municipalities that exceed their target, the government said.
The City of Toronto was handed $114 million as a “reward” for meeting its goal recently, while Brampton landed just over $25 million.
But critics have raised concerns about the government’s decision to count long-term care beds towards its housing targets.
Several Ontario communities have seen a large percentage of their housing starts made up of long-term care beds.
In Belleville, for instance, 45 per cent of the 644 housing starts counted in 2023 were long-term care beds.
Ontario Liberal MPP John Fraser has called the government’s inclusion of long-term care beds “deceptive” in its housing data.
“The government’s fluffing their numbers,” Fraser told Global News this week.
“I don’t know why they’re doing it. It’s deceptive, it’s misleading, it’s unreasonable to do that.”
Housing Minister Paul Calandra has stood behind the policy, saying it was part of a push to provide a “spectrum” of housing in the province.
— with files from Isaac Callan & Colin D’Mello