Federal government moves ahead with plan to build more homes in Alberta

The City of Airdrie is getting $24.8 million dollars to build new homes in the fast growing community north of Calgary.

The money, from the federal government, has been provided through its Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF).

It will be used to build more than 900 homes in Airdrie over the next three years.

In making the announcement, federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser said the money will come in stages, with 25 per cent up front, and an additional 25 per cent over each of the next three years.

Fraser also said those future installments are contingent on the city adopting a new development framework.

"(Changes) around putting in place a program to reduce development charges for the downtown revitalization programs, around making public lands available, programs around tax relief for affordable housing, permitting secondary suites, adopting four units as a right," Fraser said.

"My expectation is that Airdrie will make good on its commitments, and they should know that the federal government is going to make good (too)."

Jessica DeVreeze, affordable housing strategist for the city said Airdrie council has not yet made the legislative changes, including rezoning to allow multi-family developments in areas currently zoned as single-family only.

"There are some places in the city that we really want to encourage more growth, such as in the downtown core that will align with our downtown revitalization plans, as well as along there are established transit corridors," said DeVreeze.

"We really are focusing on pushing development in the place that will make the most sense in terms of blanket zoning. We really haven't gotten to that level of detail yet."

DeVreeze says the city will conduct public consultations before debating possible changes to zoning bylaws.

Airdrie's growth is no longer spurred mainly by Calgarians fleeing the big city for less expensive real estate.

Airdrie Mayor Peter Brown says interprovincial and international immigration following the provincial campaign to attract new Albertans is now the driver of growth.

"What we found with that campaign is we brought a lot of new residents to our community. It's been amazing, but it's put pressure on a lot of our infrastructure. Obviously, the social and recreation needs of our communities are paramount," Brown said.

Noticeably absent from the press conference announcing the housing funds was any representative of Alberta's provincial government.

When questioned about bypassing the province and dealing directly with municipalities, Fraser said it comes down to cutting through red tape.

"When it comes to incentivizing the kinds of changes that we know cities can adopt to make it easier to build homes, we can incentivize that with federal leadership and federal money by putting cash on the table and saying to the most ambitious cities in Canada, 'show us what you're prepared to do to make it easier to build homes.'

"If provincial governments want to partner with us, we'd more than happily welcome it. But in this present instance, we're very happy to be making an investment solely as a federal government to see Airdrie change the way that it builds homes."

CTV News reached out to Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver.

A spokesperson for his office pointed to a statement McIver made in November 2023, in which he said, "I'm concerned about the repeated public comments from the federal government and the federal Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Sean Fraser indicating they will continue to deal directly with municipalities."

"This is just the federal government's latest attempt to bypass Alberta and other provincial governments and overstep their authority," he said.

Launched in March 2023, the HAF is a $4 billion initiative from the Government of Canada that will run until 2026-27.