Improve Access to Affordable Housing
CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : As we've been discussing, the Premier is concentrating power, cutting out experts and planners, and giving some developers a fast lane to build, without regard for things like tenders or oversight, and with virtually no strings attached.
Meanwhile, it's extremely difficult for families to get a construction loan to build their first home. The government program designed to help them hasn't been updated in over a decade. I'll table that.
With mortgage rates rising and building costs rising, will the Premier also help families and improve the eligibility under the Family Modest Housing Program so that they can build for themselves?
THE PREMIER « » : Everything we do is focused on families and on Nova Scotians. In fact, I think just yesterday the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing announced a loan program for granny suites on properties. That's an important announcement.
We have made a number of investments in housing. We put families and Nova Scotians at the very core of everything we do. There's more work to be done on housing, for sure. I wish the provincial government of Nova Scotia could control world interest rates and world inflation, but we can't. We deal with what's in front of us, and we step up every single day and support Nova Scotians.
CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Yesterday's announcement will help families who can invest enough to rent out a property, but my question is about families building for themselves. I want to know why the Premier is so reluctant to help families build, buy, or keep their own housing when he's giving over $100 million in benefits, plus easy access, to developers, with no evidence that it will lower rents or the cost of housing for people.
Meanwhile, he won't even establish a simple residential tenancies enforcement branch that has been asked for by landlords and renters and experts to make sure that at least everyone is playing by the same rules.
Why is the Premier so reluctant to help regular Nova Scotians afford housing?
THE PREMIER « » : Speaker, in fact the bill that is before the House around HRM planning does exactly this. It gets housing built. The special planning area is about getting things approved that have been sitting and languishing for 10 or 12 years or something. There are a number of areas, and one of the areas is very close to the member's area, where there will be 800 to 1,000 families living in homes in that area. That number has been against us from the beginning. I wish they would never build there.
The reality is that we have a situation with the HRM where staff have advised Council that projects should go forward, and Council has said that is not happening. The proponents appeal to the NSUARB and the NSUARB decides in favour. We just want to cut it out. We want housing built. That's what we want.
CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : God forbid a member should suggest that we take environmental protections into account when building. For the record, which I will table tomorrow, my comments were that we could build and protect a wetland, but this Premier is too impatient to do that.
The kicker, Speaker, is that it's not even clear that this approach is going to have any impact. I have a line out the door of people in my office asking when the affordable housing at Southdale-Mount Hope is built. What we tell them is, It's not. No one who has come to our office for housing will ever be able to afford to live in that development.
Single-detached housing starts have plunged this year under this Premier's watch. They're down 34 per cent from this time last year in Halifax, and not one family is living in an affordable unit that was built because of a special planning area. Clearly, the Premier's plan is not helping regular Nova Scotians. Who is he trying to help?
THE PREMIER « » : The reality is I wish I could snap my fingers and a house would be built tonight. It can't be.
We know that the interest rates are having an impact on housing starts, for sure. If I could fix the interest rates, I would. If I could build a house tonight, I would build one. We need people to have houses. That's why we have the More Opportunity for Skilled Trades program. I wish the Opposition would get behind that, a crazy, innovative program that is helping people. That's why we made the changes to the apprenticeship program. That's why we're removing HST from building. That's why we're saying to HRM and other municipalities, Get moving. What needs to be built should be built. I ask the members opposite to stand with Nova Scotians, put the partisan hack shots to the side, and let's get some housing built for Nova Scotia.