Winnipeg Construction X

[bon_vivant]

Originally Posted by wags_in_the_peg

...the shiny new toy doesnt always solve the issues

Look no further than Portage Place. Hopefully we've learned a few things in the last 40 years.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by FactaNV

Also, the St Charles plot thickens, Zaifman has announced plans for a 10 sorry next door on the parking lot.

Considering the promises about how the former building foot print would be maintained as vacant space and not used to expand parking and what then actually happened the city is owed a lot more than "10 sorrys".

[FactaNV]

Well here comes 60,000 reasons to get the ball rolling on new units downtown! Applications open on May 31 if approved.

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/br...using-projects

[ColdRain&Snow]

Originally Posted by FactaNV

Well here comes 60,000 reasons to get the ball rolling on new units downtown! Applications open on May 31 if approved.

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/br...using-projects

It's better than nothing, but $25 million will not be enough money to make a significant difference. Take 308 Colony St for example (not technically downtown but close enough for this example). It's a 21 story building that has 214 units, 130 of which are market-rate and the other 84 are CMHC affordable.

Some quick math:
130 market-rate units * $25,000 per unit = $3,250,000
84 affordable units * $60,000 per unit = 5,040,000
Total: $8,290,000

So one mixed-income highrise building would take up about 1/3 of the funding. So this announcement of $25 million in incentives would be enough for about 3 highrise buildings downtown. Again, better than nothing, but 3 new buildings will hardly make a difference in terms of housing affordability in a city of 750,000. We're probably looking at only about 600-700 new housing units being constructed.

Actually, the article even says this:
"The city hopes to entice developers to create about 600 units of housing, with about half of them deemed affordable, through the grants."

600 housing units in a city of 750,000 people...

[ColdRain&Snow]

I came across this graph recently... It's pretty telling.

[FactaNV]

Originally Posted by ColdRain&Snow

I came across this graph recently... It's pretty telling.

Government sure seemed more effective back then. The complete divestiture of affordable housing to the private sector was never viable.

600 housing units in a city of 750,000 people...

Fair enough, you are correct in saying better than nothing though. Maybe if it's a success there's a possibility it could be expanded or that the feds invest more money into the Winnipeg HAF. Wishful thinking but who knows. The best thing we can do right now in regards to the HAF is be good little players in the Feds game and let Alberta and Sask go nuclear and ban this money in their provinces. Maybe we'll get some of there's for our troubles.

[bomberjet]

600 units is not the whole thing though, right? It mentions 931 affordable, with 300 of them coming in this first batch of money.

It only mentions $25 million out of the $122.4 million.

Quotes from the article:

The city hopes to entice developers to create about 600 units of housing, with about half of them deemed affordable, through the grants.

CMHC has devoted up to $122.4 million from its Housing Accelerator Fund to Winnipeg over three years, with an overall goal to create 3,166 net new housing units, including 931 that are affordable.

[Biff]

My understanding is that a chunk of that $122m will go to trying to improve development services with the City of Winnipeg (Zoning, Permitting, Inspections etc), $40m or so will go to expanding the sewer capacity in St Norbert. There is currently about a half dozen multi-family projects stalled in the development stage there. The rest...who knows.

I know that money doesn't grow on trees, but with the Province and City having budgets in the billions, I'm sure they could scrape together $25m every year to keep this program going. 3 or 4 buildings per year would make a big difference.

[FactaNV]

Originally Posted by Biff

My understanding is that a chunk of that $122m will go to trying to improve development services with the City of Winnipeg (Zoning, Permitting, Inspections etc), $40m or so will go to expanding the sewer capacity in St Norbert. There is currently about a half dozen multi-family projects stalled in the development stage there. The rest...who knows.

I know that money doesn't grow on trees, but with the Province and City having budgets in the billions, I'm sure they could scrape together $25m every year to keep this program going. 3 or 4 buildings per year would make a big difference.

Maybe this is something the city could work with charities and NGOs on in the future. Maybe a half and half match and funnel the money to coops and deeply affordable units. 12.5M from Winnipeg, 12.5M from the Winnipeg Foundation or TNSE or the Richardsons, etc, as an example. 25M a year for ten years producing an average of three new highrises starts fill up surface lots preeeeeeetty quick downtown. Hell, keeping it going for 5 years for some transformative development downtown.

[ColdRain&Snow]

Originally Posted by Biff

My understanding is that a chunk of that $122m will go to trying to improve development services with the City of Winnipeg (Zoning, Permitting, Inspections etc), $40m or so will go to expanding the sewer capacity in St Norbert. There is currently about a half dozen multi-family projects stalled in the development stage there. The rest...who knows.

I know that money doesn't grow on trees, but with the Province and City having budgets in the billions, I'm sure they could scrape together $25m every year to keep this program going. 3 or 4 buildings per year would make a big difference.

This is my understanding as well.

[bomberjet]

My lord. I thought the St. Norbert thing was a joke haha

I find that odd. The City needs to spend $40 mil on sewers for the private developers? I commented on this yesterday Re: Kenaston and St. B. Hoping the private developers will be paying a share of the cost. City didn't want to spend this money in St. B, so why now in St. N?

[trueviking]

man, that will be hilarious if the city spends 1/3 of the HAF funding to build a sewer line in what is basically a car-centric rural municipality on the other side of the perimeter highway. Do they even have transit out there? You couldn't pick a more remote place to incentivize housing.

[bomberjet]

Sure do. Even the Blue line goes out there.

[trueviking]

it doesn't make sense that the province isn't matching this at least...housing is a provincial jurisdiction.

$25 mil will be sucked up immediately by a couple big projects....

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Sure do. Even the Blue line goes out there.

I'd love to see the mode share.

edit...looked it up...its about 8%....not the worst. Still seems like the city should be focusing on infrastructure in more central neighbourhoods. Do we really care that St. Norbert has a few more apartment buildings?

[zalf]

I largely agree that spending a penny of HAF in St. Norbert is dumb, but to be fair, the Blue line does go there. If the money were somehow linked to TOD development around the St Norbert terminus, it wouldn't be so bad.

[BAKGUY]

Originally Posted by ColdRain&Snow

It's better than nothing, but $25 million will not be enough money to make a significant difference. Take 308 Colony St for example (not technically downtown but close enough for this example). It's a 21 story building that has 214 units, 130 of which are market-rate and the other 84 are CMHC affordable.

Some quick math:
130 market-rate units * $25,000 per unit = $3,250,000
84 affordable units * $60,000 per unit = 5,040,000
Total: $8,290,000

So one mixed-income highrise building would take up about 1/3 of the funding. So this announcement of $25 million in incentives would be enough for about 3 highrise buildings downtown. Again, better than nothing, but 3 new buildings will hardly make a difference in terms of housing affordability in a city of 750,000. We're probably looking at only about 600-700 new housing units being constructed.

Actually, the article even says this:
"The city hopes to entice developers to create about 600 units of housing, with about half of them deemed affordable, through the grants."

600 housing units in a city of 750,000 people...

I will add, the Winnipeg city CMA is estimated to be 925,000 at this time.. 750,000 would be many years ago.. so even more disappointing

[1ajs]

FYI this Might be interesting read for everyone

heres the breakdown of provincial funding for the city between 2024 to 2027

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MST...usp=drive_link

[FactaNV]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/winnipe...-assessed/amp/

[1ajs]

they should do a random audit of some other properties and see what they find