Housing industry partners meet with Gatineau mayor
The Association de la construction du Québec (ACQ), the Association des professionnels de la construction et de l'habitation du Québec (APCHQ), the Corporation des propriétaires immobiliers du Québec (CORPIQ) and the Urban Development Institute of Quebec (UDI) met with the mayor of Gatineau, France Bélisle, to discuss the municipality's vision for housing. In this area, the City of Gatineau shares the opinion that it is necessary to complete an objective assessment of the situation in order to lay the foundations of an action plan with all the players: municipalities, the provincial government, the federal government, the community sector, the private sector and civil society.
"The housing action committee (comité-shoc) that I have set up is an initiative to untie knots and facilitate exchanges between the stakeholders in the housing sector for our market: provincial and federal governments, developers, builders and community organizations. The objective of this committee is to put forward a series of proactive measures in order to see construction sites rise quickly. In Gatineau, we believe in the collaboration of all the players in the field so that together we can build a beautiful city that meets current and future needs," declared France Bélisle, Mayor of Gatineau.
"Like many cities in Quebec, Gatineau has a major housing problem with a vacancy rate of 0.8%. Faced with this situation, Gatineau has chosen to take action by focusing on a global approach that goes beyond the building, but that takes into account the human being and his or her living environment. We believe that these are interesting orientations to contain the crisis," emphasize the spokespersons for the housing industry partners Guillaume Houle of the ACQ, David Dinelle of the APCHQ, Marc-André Plante of CORPIQ and Jean-Marc Fournier of the IDU.
The need for concerted action
While the housing shortage is responsible for soaring rental housing prices and the difficulty of accessing homeownership, the only way to reduce the housing overheating in a sustainable manner is to increase supply. The housing industry partners want to work with Quebec's municipal leaders to find solutions to further stimulate housing construction and to review the many mechanisms that are holding back housing starts.
"In order to improve the supply situation and establish a long-term vision that will allow us to get out of the crisis, we believe that all players in the housing sector must roll up their sleeves and look in the same direction to find solutions to increase and accelerate the development of new housing units. The voice and role of the municipalities in this regard seem to us to be essential," say the industry partners.
Towards a national housing action plan
Since the municipal sector is facing critical housing issues without adequate funding, the partners believe that the various levels of government must jointly conduct an objective review of the challenges and issues that are responsible for the crisis in the housing sector.
In order to respond to the housing shortage in all regions of Quebec, the four organizations maintain that this joint diagnosis is essential to enable government authorities at all levels to develop a real action plan in which their respective actions will be complementary and coherent. Armed with these objective findings and this plan, government authorities will be able to bring together all the social and economic players in order to meet the housing challenge.
