KAWARTHA LAKES-The City of Kawartha Lakes received a funding boost from the province today to help reach its municipal housing targets.
Matthew Rae, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, announced Ontario is providing Kawartha Lakes with $1,566,177 in funding through the Building Faster Fund after the municipality made progress towards meeting its 2023 housing target, breaking ground on a total of 431 new housing units last year.
“I want to congratulate Kawartha Lakes and all municipalities that have worked hard to get shovels in the ground faster,” said Matthew Rae, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. “Our challenge to these municipalities now is to redouble their efforts to build more homes than ever before so we can improve affordability and keep the dream of homeownership alive in Ontario. Our government will be there to support you every step of the way, including through our recent budget investment of more than $1.8 billion in housing-enabling infrastructure.”
Announced in August 2023, the Building Faster Fund is a three-year, $1.2 billion program that is designed to encourage municipalities to address the housing supply crisis. The fund rewards municipalities that make significant progress against their targets by providing funding for housing-enabling and community-enabling infrastructure. Funding is provided to municipalities that have reached at least 80 per cent of their provincially assigned housing target for the year with increased funding for municipalities that exceed their target.
The City of Kawartha Lakes pledged 6,500 new homes by 2031.
“In 2023, our dedicated Housing Pledge Team, which includes both staff and council members, united to achieve 90 per cent of our housing target,” said Doug Elmslie, Mayor of Kawartha Lakes. “We remain steadfast in our commitment to meet this year’s goal and to approve housing solutions for needs across the entire housing spectrum. Thanks to the $1.5 million in funding from our provincial partner and MPP Laurie Scott, we are now in a strong position to advance the necessary infrastructure to facilitate housing approvals.”
MPP Laurie Scott was on hand for the announcement.
“Our government is proud to provide over $1.5 million to the City of Kawartha Lakes for making such progress toward their housing targets and contributing to the province’s goal of building more homes faster in our community. I’d like to thank and congratulate the City of Kawartha Lakes for working hard to get shovels in the ground,” said Laurie Scott
MPP for Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock
Elmslie said this funding means the municipality can keep moving forward toward its development plans and streamlining the administrative process.
“It’s not just about improving housing starts it’s about constructing a sense of community. We are committed to working with the province to ensure the necessary services are in place to welcome our new neighbours.” said Elmslie
Some residents have expressed concern in the past about delays in getting development applications approved in the City. Elmslie says they have hired some private companies to assist with processing the backlog.
“Our planning department has taken an initiative to parcel out some work to some private concerns so that we can deal with the planning applications faster and quicker so that we can get more homes in the pipeline, ” explained the Mayor. We have contracted with WSB (A consulting structural engineering firm) to do some larger projects and made an arrangement with Dillon and Company (Dillon Consulting) to do some others. We just hired a new manager for planning and our complement of planners is almost there, we are very close, so I think we are going to be able to accommodate the applications that are in the pipeline much quicker.”
Elmslie says the Environmental Assessment for the Lindsay water treatment and wastewater plant is ongoing and should have that completed within 18 months which he says will also aid in getting homes built on target.
The Building Faster Fund includes $120 million for small, rural and northern municipalities to help build housing-enabling infrastructure and prioritize projects that speed up the increase of housing supply.
