Budget opens door to faster housing development in Ottawa, Canada Lands boss says
David Sali, OBJ
April 24, 2024 2:23 PM ET
The head of a Crown corporation that buys and develops federal properties says he’s hoping to speed up projects such as converting empty government office buildings into apartments in a bid to boost Ottawa’s housing stock.
Canada Lands Company president and CEO Stéphan Déry told a city-building summit organized by OBJ and the Ottawa Board of Trade this week his organization is working with developers on a number of projects that will eventually provide thousands of new housing units in the National Capital Region.
“We want to contribute,” Déry said during a panel discussion Tuesday at Lansdowne Park’s Horticulture Building. “We’re all about building mixed-use communities.”
He said the recent federal budget has given Canada Lands new tools to help speed the development process along.
They include $5 million in new funding targeted for measures such as providing low-cost leases to builders, putting housing on underused federal properties, and working with other Crown corporations to redevelop surplus buildings.
In addition, while the federal government previously sold properties to Canada Lands at market rates, it will now look to transfer land to the company for $1 whenever possible to help spur affordable housing projects.
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However, Déry acknowledged that market headwinds have thrown a wrench in some of the corporation’s other plans for local properties.
For example, he told the crowd a deal to sell a 6.5-acre site on Booth Street to a developer fell through earlier this year.
The property, which was once home to the Mines and Resources Branch of Natural Resources Canada, is a “complex site” that includes several buildings on the City of Ottawa’s designated heritage list, Déry explained.
“The market is not the market that we knew before the pandemic,” he said. “When you go to market with that (type of site) and you approach a developer, they think twice.”
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https://obj.ca/budget-opens-door-to-...nds-boss-says/