The Government of Canada has revealed plans to begin consultations in early January 2024 on a housing design catalogue initiative. This step is in line with what the government of the day tried between 1950s and 1970s to address post-war housing shortages.
Over these years, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) created a series of housing design catalogues to help Canada accelerate the production of housing. These efforts were an essential component of the federal effort to build capacity in the construction sector.
The new initiative aims to accelerate the delivery of homes by standardizing housing designs, starting with low-rise construction. It will explore a potential catalogue to support higher density construction, such as mid-rise buildings, and different forms of housing construction, such as modular and prefabricated homes. The government will also look at ways to support municipalities, provinces, and territories looking to implement their own housing design catalogues.
The consultations will begin next year, and the government will engage with partners and stakeholders across the housing sector to seek their input and expertise.
“In order to build more homes faster, we need to change how we build homes in Canada. We are going to take the idea of a housing catalogue, which we used the last time Canada faced a housing crisis, and bring it into the 21st century. This is going to help accelerate future developments and tap into new and innovative construction methods that will make a real difference in building communities across Canada,” says Sean Fraser, minister of housing, infrastructure, and communities.
