How can real estate developers be encouraged to start building new housing units in Quebec? One expert believes the “regulatory aspect” is holding back housing starts.
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Hit hard by the real estate crisis, several cities have a vacancy rate of less than 1%.
The problem of the housing shortage could be slowed down by accelerating housing construction, provided the conditions for this are met.
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According to the economist Francis Gosselin, in addition to the labor shortage, municipal regulations with regard to building rental projects are also damaging to property developers.
“There is one of the elements that is mainly incumbent on the municipalities and cities, which is the whole regulatory aspect, even worse the length of time it takes to process permit applications.” “We see that in big cities, there is an increase in the length of treatment,” he says in an interview on LCN.
“[Pour] a developer [ou] A developer buying a buildable lot, each additional day, each additional week it takes to process the request and give the project the green light, these are costs associated with financing and ownership. Ultimately, it slows down the start of construction.”
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Subsidies for developers, property tax credits and administrative relief for the construction of social housing: all of these solutions are good for promoting housing construction.
Despite the efforts of the Quebec government, the real estate crisis could hamper Montreal’s economic prosperity in the short and medium term.
“If people don’t have a home, they can’t work and they can’t be productive. […] If we welcome 75,000 immigrants tomorrow, we have to house them somewhere, we have to house them, we have to offer them accommodation,” adds Mr. Gosselin.
“Currently, labor issues are limiting the nation’s growth.”
*Watch the interview with Francis Gosselin in the video above*