Alberta has launched a new online portal aimed at reducing housing construction delays, but some say the province needs to take more immediate action if they really want to fix the housing crisis. The new gives developers and local governments a space to report red tape and what they perceive as unnecessary building delays. Scot Fash, CEO of BILD Alberta, says the tool will help address issues related to the permit process and building code interpretations, which can add months to the process.
“Often you’ll have, within the same municipality, one safety code officer interpret the same line of building code differently from another one,” he says. “And it has significant impacts on cost designs and approvals.” He says these slowdowns are causing home prices to go up by around 10 per cent in many cases.
“Really a process that should be a month, is now extending to six months to eight months,” says Fash. Calgary’s soaring home prices, largely due to limited supply, has caused many renters in the city to give up on their dreams of home ownership. A saw 84 per cent of Canadian respondents say home ownership has become a luxury and 88 per cent who rent say they’ll never own a home.
Even with the existing issues, officials in Calgary say the city’s increasing housing supply is already impacting the average rental price, which fell by 4.7 per cent annually last month. ACORN Canada is still demanding the government do more to address rent costs.
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