The federal government has added 56 properties — including 22 in Ottawa — to a new public lands bank of locations that are suitable for long-term leases so developers can build housing, a move the housing minister says will help boost the supply of homes Canadians can afford.
Sean Fraser made the announcement Sunday in Halifax just ahead of a three-day cabinet retreat intended to prepare for the upcoming fall sitting of Parliament.
“Making public lands available for home construction is going to reduce the cost of construction and in turn reduce the cost of living,” Fraser said.
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Former military bases, Canada Post sites and federal office buildings are among the properties currently included in the public lands bank, many of which were previously set aside for sale as they are no longer in use.
In Ottawa, the list includes five properties at Tunney’s Pasture, the Jackson Building at 122 Bank St., L’Esplanade Laurier on Bank Street, 552 Booth St., Edward Drake Building (the former CBC building) at 1500 Bronson Ave., 2670 Riverside Dr. in Hogs Back, the Sir Charles Tupper Building at 2720 Riverside Dr., 875 Heron Rd. in Alta Vista, Federal Study Centre at 1495 Heron Rd., National Defence Medical Centre at 1745 Alta Vista Dr., five sites at 470 Tremblay Rd. near the St. Laurent Shopping Centre, 599 Tremblay Rd. near St. Laurent Shopping Centre, the former CFB Rockcliffe site at 370 Codd’s Rd. and 800 Winisik St., and the former CFB Rockcliffe site at Tawadina Road and Wanaki Road.
The new plan is to offer most of the properties for long-term lease rather than one-time sale to keep the lands in public hands and ensure housing built on them remains affordable.
The current list includes properties in 28 municipalities in seven provinces but will grow over time through an ongoing review of underused or vacant federal land and buildings.
Five properties — first identified in the April budget — are now moving into the development phase with the government asking developers for expressions of interest or requests for proposals.
Four of them are on former military bases in Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Ottawa, while the fifth is the site of a former National Film Board building in Montreal.
The Conservative housing plan involves the sale of 15 per cent of all federal buildings to be turned into homes.
Fraser said construction of housing on the first five properties could begin in the first half of 2025.
Housing will be a key issue at the cabinet retreat as Canadians continue to grapple with high costs and limited availability.
Canada’s housing crisis — driven by high interest rates and rapid immigration that exceeds housing supply growth — has added to the affordability crisis with average home prices and rents rising sharply in the last five years.
Last year’s cabinet retreat in Charlottetown had a heavy focus on housing, but the Liberals left that session without anything concrete to announce. Their poll numbers continued to suffer as they failed to convince Canadians they have the recipe to fix a problem that has become critical under their watch.
They announced the broad strokes of their new housing plan in April, including new protections for tenants, loans to build more apartments and a spate of programs to massively expand the number of affordable units available.
Former Liberal chief of staff Marci Surkes, now the chief strategy officer at government relations firm Compass Rose, said housing will be central to this retreat and the Liberal agenda going forward.
“Frankly the government has certainly made significant policy moves and investments since last year and some of them are beginning to bear fruit, but the reality is that the focus on supply needs to remain in place,” she said. “There is no real relief yet.”
The government intends to spur construction of 3.87 million new housing units in the next seven years.
It’s estimated between 3.1 million and 3.5 million new units are needed by 2031.
