Researching Affordable Housing Opportunities
With a new 10-Year Housing and Homelessness Plan now in place, this research project seeks to identify ways in which city planning might better facilitate and advance the creation of more affordable housing opportunities in neighbourhoods across the city. The research will answer the following questions:
- Are there specific barriers within the local/provincial planning system that limit the ability of non-profit and for-profit developers to build new affordable housing?
- Are there existing planning policies, tools and/or incentives that could be used to fuller effect and provide immediate opportunities for greater affordable housing development by non-profit providers independently or in partnership with like-minded private sector developers?
- What opportunities should be pursued – both immediately and over the longer term – to amend the Planning Act and/or local municipal policies and plans to enable more affordable housing?
- What can we learn from elsewhere in Canada and internationally (promising/best practices, enabling conditions, readiness) that could be applied/adapted to Ottawa?
The research project will deliver recommendations next spring that identify immediate and longer-term actions that can be implemented to strengthen the role of the City’s planning and development processes to deliver on the 10-Year Plan’s promise to create “a home for everyone”.