A bylaw brought in by the Plante administration in 2021 had a goal of pushing developers to include social and affordable housing in new projects, but the opposition at city hall says that has not happened even once.
“It’s catastrophic,” said Julien Hénault-Ratelle, housing critic at opposition party Ensemble Montréal.
Passed in 2021, Projet Montréal’s “Bylaw for a Diverse Metropolis” had the goal of forcing developers to include 20 per cent social, affordable and family housing in projects bigger than 4,800 square feet. Two years later, Hénault-Ratelle says according to the city’s own data, the legislation has failed.
“Over the past two years, there’s been no affordable housing that have been built, no affordable housing in two years,” Hénault-Ratelle said.
Ensemble Montréal says it analyzed some of the city’s open data and found there were 150 agreements between the city and developers between April 2021 and May 2023, leading to the construction of 7,100 units.
Not one, the party says, was an affordable housing unit. Developers just choose to pay a fine instead of following the rules. The penalties have totaled $24.5 million over that time period.
Hénault-Ratelle wondered if the city was able to use the money to add to the housing offer, but Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante indicated that was not the case.
“It goes in a pocket, but it’s not enough. It’s there to support social housing,” she said.
Housing rights advocate Catherine Lussier thinks the fines are not harsh enough to stop developers from skirting the rules.
“The contributions being asked since the beginning are too low for actually discouraging promoters,” said the FRAPRU community organizer.
Plante says the blame should fall on the shoulders of the provincial government and accuses Quebec of cutting funding to social housing. She called the bylaw a “planning tool.”
“It’s not the bylaw that is the problem and doesn’t work. It is the fact that the government of Quebec have left out his responsibility to finance social housing,” Plante said.
Lussier agrees Quebec has a role to play in improving access to affordable and social housing.
“In four years there is only 500 units that have been financed,” she said. “There is no city that has the ability to do it themselves.”
Housing minister France-Elaine Duranceau didn’t respond to a request for comment by our deadline.
The city had pledged to give a report on the progress of the new law in early 2023, but that hasn’t happened.
“We need the administration to be really transparent and honest about what is that the concrete reality on the field,” said Hénault-Ratelle.
When Hénault-Ratelle grilled Projet Montréal on the topic at city council, they pointed to other initiatives, like acquiring rooming houses to keep them affordable.
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