0:02
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), introduces the presentation.]
[Visual: PowerPoint slide titled "Preparing your municipal application for the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF)." Decorative photograph of colleagues having a meeting. National Housing Strategy and CMHC logos and Canada wordmark appear at the bottom of the screen. Some participant images and names appear on the right side of the screen.]
Courage to start their action plan now as there is a short application window once the client portal opens for application later this summer.
0:11
The topics we will cover today include information on creating an action plan, the helpful tools and resources available, and answers to the most frequently asked questions.
0:21
This one hour session will consist of a roughly 30 minute presentation followed by a 30 minute question. And today's session will be recorded.
0:31
Your videos, microphones and the chat have all been disabled for this session, so please use the Q and A button to ask any questions that you have during the presentation, and we'll try our best to respond to those questions at the end of the presentation.
0:47
[Visual: PowerPoint slide transitions to the logo "Here we gather" in a yellow text box over a black and white topography-themed background. Video image of the speaker and some participants appears to the right of the screen.]
As a resident of Vancouver, the land on which I live, work and play is a traditional, ancestral and unseeded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the Squamish, Slavich, youth, and Muslim nations. I am grateful and thankful for this land and truly appreciate and respect its many generations of caretakers. As we're trending more and more into a virtual environment, it's important to take a moment to reflect on the good things the land in which you're joining us from brings to you every day.
1:22
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide stating the session objective in white text with a dark background. A badge icon sits below the text, "Session Objective." Video image of the speaker and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears in the upper right corner of the screen.]
So this today's presentation will provide you with the information and knowledge you'll need to submit your application for the Housing Accelerator Fund. This presentation comes after a previous introductory presentation session that was recorded and is available for your viewing pleasure on our website. We would like to thank all of you who've taken the time to submit questions during the registration process. Many, if not all of those questions will be answered during the presentation or have been addressed in a previously recorded session. However, if anything is still unclear.
1:53
Please, as mentioned and put your questions in the Q and A box and we'll get to them at the end of the presentation.
2:00
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to the presentation agenda. Agenda items in bullet points on left side of the screen. Decorative photograph of colleagues having a meeting to the right. Video image of the speaker and some participants on the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy | Overview" title appears in the upper right corner of the screen.]
On our agenda for today, we will have a brief program overview. We'll consider what is 1/2 Action Plan. We'll get some guidance on development of Action Plan initiatives. We'll take a look at some other resources that are available to you, and, of course, our Q&A session.
2:19
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide introducing the webinar presenters, Cleo Corbett and Lucas Reinhardt, both senior specialists on CMHC's Municipal Relations Team. Images of the presenters are accompanied by their biographies. Video image of the speaker and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy | Overview" title appears in the upper right corner of the screen.]
You're all in for a special treat. Today. I'm really happy to introduce our presenters Cleo Corbett and Lucas Reinhardt. They're both a wealth of information and knowledge and they're and knowledge and they're very excited to share it all with you. Both Cleo and Lucas have spent many years working in municipal government before coming over to the other side of the federal government. So we look forward to hearing from them today.
2:45
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a Program Overview slide. Decorative photograph of urban residential housing on the left of the screen. Video image of the speaker and some participants appears to the right of the screen.]
We'll just begin by taking a look at a brief summary and expectations of this program, and then I'll pass it over to Cleo to continue with today's session.
2:57
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to an HAF Overview animation accompanied by instrumental music. "Objectives" appears in the middle of the screen below icon of a hand with a finger pointing up towards three star outlines. The middle star is filled in yellow. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
3:13
[Visual: PowerPoint animation then lists the objectives in turn: "Implementation of initiatives to get more homes built faster" and "Speed up approvals & building processes." Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner]
[Visual: PowerPoint animation transitions to Supported Priorities. Hand icon moves to bottom of screen and icon of a park scene appears in the centre of the screen. A list of supported priorities appears: Development of complete, affordable, inclusive, equitable and diverse low-carbon and climate-resilient communities. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
[Visual: PowerPoint animation transitions to Available Funding. Park scene icon moves to bottom of screen and money-themed icon appears above "Available Funding." An explanation of eligible applicants appears below title. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
3:33
[Visual: PowerPoint Animation transitions to a recap of the HAF Overview. Objectives + Supported Priorities + Available Funding = Expected program outcomes of 100,000 net new permitted units. The hand, park scene and money-themed icons appear above each item. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
[Visual: PowerPoint Animation transitions to an HAF Overview slide of the expected program outcome of 100,000 net new permitted units. Image of a street scape lines the bottom of the screen with progressive housing realities listed below: homelessness, emergency shelter, transitional housing, supportive housing, community housing, affordable housing, market housing. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
[End of PowerPoint animation and accompanying music. ]
3:54
[Presenter: Cleo Corbett – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide explaining how HAF is different from other National Housing Strategy (NHS) initiatives. Two columns, Other NHS initiatives and HAF, appear in two light columns over a dark background. Money-themed icon appears on top of the Other NHS initiatives column. Rocket icon appears above the HAF column. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
Great. Thank you so much for the introduction, Marcia. And uh, I'm really glad to be with you today. Thank you everyone for coming.
4:02
So um indeed UH, the housing Accelerator fund or half as UH we've we've coined it is quite different from other National Housing strategy programs where typically you might be comfortable with CMHC programs that are more project based and maybe associated with some underwriting or a specific address. This is really more about transformational change.
4:32
The Housing Accelerator Fund aims to work directly with municipalities and First Nations and Indigenous governments to incentivize long lasting systemic changes in the housing system.
4:47
And funding is, um, based on you making progress towards implementation of your action plans, which is the main focus of our presentation today.
4:59
And the use of those funds is very flexible. This is the incentive part of the program. You can spend these funds on implementation of your action plan, but also on anything that supports the housing system, such as parks or active transportation or infrastructure upgrades, which we know are all things that are needed and associated with increasing housing supply in your communities.
5:33
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide titled "What is a HAF action plan?" Text is offset in yellow over a light background. Decorative photograph of an urban residential street appears on the left side of the screen. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
So uh, what is the action plan?
5:38
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to an outline of the action plan elements. Screen is split in half, with "The action plan" text offset in yellow over a light background on the left side. Decorative photograph of colleagues sitting at a round table working on the right side. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
Um, it will have some minimum requirements uh, which we have gone over in in previous UM webinars, but I'll I'll touch on those a little bit so, so that you can keep those top of top of mind.
5:52
Um, we're wanting to make sure that these action plans increase housing supply.
5:58
Increase the diversity of the housing supply.
6:02
But also that growth is aligned with other federal priorities, such as creating complete compact communities, communities that are low carbon and climate resilient, and also to ensure a diversified housing supply that meets the diverse needs of people in Canada. And all of these really do reflect best practices in urban planning.
6:31
Your action plan, uh, if your application is successful, will also form part of your contribution agreement. So this is really what you're committing to do over the life of the program.
6:47
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide outlining the action plan components in a white text box over a dark background: Housing supply growth target, Other Unit estimates and Action plan initiatives. Plus-sign symbols separate each component. Achievement-themed icons appear above each component. A reminder appears below stating that funding is based on alignment with program priorities. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
So, So what are the key components? Um, I talked about this briefly. UM, housing supply growth targets, uh, we have a handy dandy calculator on the housing accelerator website. So please feel free to check that out and and play around with that. And that will show you that if if you're entering a house, your housing stock and this is one of the first targets that you need or projections what is?
7:18
Your projected housing growth over the next three years, if nothing changed, if it just stayed at status quo, this can be based on historical trends. You can look back over three to five years, are there?
[Presenter's sound cuts out briefly.]
7:38
Housing projection and and your housing growth.
7:42
Then we're going to look at, OK, now you've got an action plan with a number of incentives. What is the growth or estimated number of units that your action plan is going to garner? So those are the two kind of main things that you need to contemplate when you're putting together your action plan.
8:06
We don't. We also want to know what types of units you think that you can create through your initiatives and this is important because it gets back to those priorities. In the pre application guide, there's an estimate that half will fund roughly $20,000 per unit, but there is incentive based funding depending on the typology of those units, the location of those.
8:37
Minutes and also affordability. So you're able to increase the amount of per unit funding depending on those things up to an estimated amount of 40,000 unit. So we have some questions. For instance, one of the incentivized unit types is transit oriented development within 1.5 kilometers of rapid transit. We understand that rapid transit does not exist in all communities across Canada.
9:09
However, UH smaller communities absolutely are encouraged to um, receive that incentive based top up funding by looking at creating other types of units such as missing middle which is ground oriented, infill type housing, gentle density, accessory dwelling units, things of that nature and there's also an incentive increase in funding for affordable housing and that's based on your local definition.
9:40
So all of those things will go into your action plan and and you're going to tell us in the application about how much supply you think that that will increase in your community.
9:54
As well as the estimated number of units and type of units that you're action plan will create.
10:03
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to slide explaining how many initiatives are required. Two categories appear in white text boxes over a dark background: 5 initiatives for Small/Rural/North/Indigenous cities or communities, and 7 initiatives Large/Urban cities. Decorative image of a house, trees, a park bench and buildings appear in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
So how many initiatives are required? Um five in communities that are less than 10,000 people and seven as a minimum in large and urban centres over 10,000. So I know some of you are thinking, well my community is 20,000 but we don't consider ourselves at large in urban that that 10,000 mark is the split and and really is the number of initiatives are meant to take a comprehensive.
10:34
Approach to the housing challenges that we face, um the reason why we're looking for a minimum number of in initiatives is that we want to ensure that some are going to be supply focused but also others are going to be more foundational and more longer reaching and more systemic changes.
11:02
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a list of the kinds of initiatives that CMHC is looking in the applications. Bulleted list appears in dark font over a light background. Decorative photograph of an urban housing development appears on the left side of the screen. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
So just to give you, um some examples, in our pre application guide material, we have a list of approximately 30 examples of different initiatives that you might want to consider. This is not an exhaustive list. We'd encourage you certainly to bring forward your own unique and creative ideas or or initiatives that suit the needs in your community.
11:27
But some examples of initiatives could be pre zoning for more density in low density areas in your community, reducing parking requirements, delegating approval authority for certain types of permitting. And so those would all kind of be supply and and timeline based initiatives but also some more systemic changes could be an asset management program where you do.
11:57
Capacity assessment on your infrastructure to better understand um what kind of upgrades or UM increases to your infrastructure that you need over a time to support growth and associated funding strategies. Also an E permitting system could be an example of of a more kind of farther reaching systems change initiative. So you can see here we are looking for things that speed up approval timelines.
12:28
That are long lasting in nature. We hope that many of these initiatives will outlast the housing accelerator program.
12:34
Um, again, we're we're hoping that these will look to create more supply over the long term, but also we hope that they'll have far reaching impact within your communities, so affecting a large amount of of your developable area within your community and a high number of eligible projects that you anticipate coming online in the next few years.
12:59
We're really looking to.
13:01
Um create more predictability and stability within the housing system. So not only could that be things like pre zoning to understand what kind of use and density you want in places, but it would also look to address concerns around disaster prone areas like floodplain areas and wildfire interface.
13:25
And and really this is what it's all about, we're looking to make positive improvements and impacts to the housing system.
13:41
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide titled "Guidance on the development of action plan initiatives." Dark title text is offset in yellow over a light background. Decorative photograph of an urban residential street appears on the left side of the screen. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
So now we're going to get into specifics. I know that we had a lot of questions around what kind of detail are you looking for, how much detail are you looking for? So, so we'll try and get into to some of that.
13:54
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide explaining pre-application preparation. Three elements are listed: Confirm you have authority to implement the action plan initiatives; Know the timeline for obtaining approvals with your council, board, or equivalent; and Determine the capacity required to plan and deliver the initiatives. The three elements appear as a numbered list over a light background. Numbers 1, 2,3 in yellow circles appear to the left of each element. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
Um, so before you start working on that UM, this program is meant for jurisdictions that have been delegated the authority to approve housing development and issue building permits.
14:06
Um, be prepared. Um, we will be looking for council support UM Council or Board support in principle for your action plans as part of signing a contribution agreement under the program. We know that each of your initiatives will likely require individual approvals from council, but we are looking at for overall support and also we understand capacity is a concern and and.
14:37
This really we're seeing UM in small communities and also large UM. So try and understand what capacity you have. We're encouraging people to be bold and be aggressive with your action plans. UM.
14:51
But you do need to have the confidence to be able to deliver because that's what your funding payments will be based on is your progress. I also want to mention here that many of you will have overarching community plans or policy documents. The probably have a number of action items already identified that have maybe been on the books for a while, but you may not have had support or capacity.
15:22
To move forward with those, um, really encourage you to look at at those things and and maybe the Housing Accelerator Fund can help you bring those forward and speed up your implementation on on those items that you've identified are of need in your community.
15:45
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide titled "Tips from Carolyn," reminding applicants to include a balance of supply-focused initiatives and initiatives that support housing supply in a broader way. Text in white appears over a dark background, with the balance reminder text offset in yellow. A photograph of a professional woman appears on the left of the screen. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
So, so I've said this a few times, you do want to make sure that you have some supply focused initiatives because that is what you're funding will be based on that kind of 20,000 estimated amount to 40,000 per unit depending on typology.
16:02
But that's why we have five to seven initiatives identified. We hope that there will be many supply oriented initiatives, but also we welcome those longer term foundational system impact initiatives to to help with that stability and predictability in the housing system.
16:29
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to screenshot of the initiative outline in the application. Important information fields have numbers to the left within yellow circles. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
This is just an A to give you an idea of the kind of information that we'll be looking for for each initiative, and we'll go through each of these, um, each of these topics.
16:43
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to an animated slide listing important elements from the Initiative Outline. Five elements are numbered within dark blue text boxes and listed across the top of a blurred photograph of a residential development: Description; Start Date; Estimated Costs; Expected Results; Other expected results. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner]
[Visual: The same animated slide transitions the Description box to an arrow pointing down to a brief explanation of the element.]
So description Um, I think this is a number of your questions. How much detail do you want? So we're really looking for you. To be specific, we don't want to see paragraphs or essays here. We really are hoping to see about 10 or two to five sentences for each initiative.
17:06
[Visual: The same animated slide transitions the Description arrow back to a box and transitions the Start Date box to an arrow pointing down to a brief explanation of the element.]
Your start date, um, so the program will accept anything that was started after April 7th, 2022. And this date is important because that's when the Housing Accelerator Fund was announced in last year's budget. I want to make a clarification here because as I say, you have a housing strategy and you have a number of initiatives that are identified in that housing strategy, simply identifying them in a policy.
17:35
Document and saying you're going to move forward with them does not mean that you have started. So again, feel free to bring forward those things that you have wanted to pursue UM into your action plans.
17:50
[Visual: The same animated slide transitions the Start Date arrow back to a box and transitions the Estimated Costs box to an arrow pointing down to a brief explanation of the element.]
Estimated costs. This also was some questions that we got. We are not looking for detailed cost estimates. We want your best guess at what it would cost to implement each initiative including staff time and that will really give us a sense of what the costs are associated with implementing some of these fairly significant chains changes within your communities.
18:20
[Visual: The same animated slide transitions the Estimated Costs arrow back to a box and transitions the Expected Results box to an arrow pointing down to a brief explanation of the element.]
The expected results, so we're looking for two things here. How many units do you think each initiative will incentivize over the next three-year. The three years of the program, but we're also asking you to forecast farther out over a 10 year time frame. How many units do you think that that your initiatives, your proposed initiatives will will incentivize that gives us a longer term vision to see what?
18:49
The forecast is around these initiatives, but it will also help us with monitoring and evaluation and understanding the actual impact as these initiatives are implemented.
19:03
[Visual: The same animated slide transitions the Expected Results arrow back to a box and transitions the Other expected results box to an arrow pointing down to a brief explanation of the element.]
And then we want to, um, give you an opportunity to let us know more broadly what you think some of the impacts of these initiatives will be. And and this gets back to some of those planning considerations around compact, complete communities and that type of thing.
19:23
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide titled "Tips from Holly," listing some questions to consider when developing the initiative outline. Text appears in white over a dark background. A prompt to answer the listed questions is offset in yellow. Photograph of a young woman with dark hair wearing decorative jewelry appears to the left of the screen. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
So, um, yeah, I, I, I've gone through all of these, but here are some things to keep. Uh, keep in mind, um, ensure you've got a good mix of of supply and system impact initiatives. Do policies need to change for you to enact a regulation?
19:44
What actions will foster success? So does a certain initiative require public consultation to create, you know the right environment and education to create buy in from the community to move forward with some of these initiatives? And then also what do you have the capacity for and will you need to draw on outside help from consultants or expertise in say engineering areas to to implement your initiative?
20:15
And so, uh, thanks very much. And with that, I'm going to pass it over to my colleague Lucas, who's gonna take you through some very specific examples. Thanks.
[Speaker: Lucas Reinhardt – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team]
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide titled "Initiative example." A screenshot of a sample initiative application fills the screen. A decorative photograph of a residential development appears to the right. Video image of Cleo Corbett, Lucas Reinhardt and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
Great. Thanks very much, Cleo. So, yeah, so we'll take you through some examples here of what an initiative could look like.
[Cleo Corbett's image leaves the screen.]
This is one of the example that the team has put together. I will note that the example you're seeing today is a little different from what you'll see when you actually get in and once the CMHC portal opens.
20:43
We're currently finalizing the portal design, so we're expecting it to be ready for early summer, so likely within the next couple of months, so keep an eye out for that. With that said, the examples you're seeing today in the initiative here are the exact same fields that you'll see when you get into the portal. It's also found in Appendix A of the pre application reference material. So after today's presentation, if you wanna go over to our pre application reference material, go to Appendix A. You'll see the exact same fields. You can get a sense of what we'll be looking for but before you even go to apply.
21:15
So in terms of our example here today, we have a program that municipalities pitching around additional dwelling unit program. So the first thing you'll see in your initiative, we're going to be looking for your title. We'll be looking for you to tag an initiative type to the initiative. This will be in the form of a drop down, so you'll select the most relevant one. If you don't see a relevant one on the list, you can also there'll be an other category where you can fill in a title as well and then of course your description, so your description and these boxes you're seeing here.
21:45
They're all character limits. So we are looking for you to be concise, be very specific, be very clear, spend a lot of time tailoring this language. In the example here you can really see that the municipality has done that. They've described the program. They've mentioned that it's what it's going to require is a changes to their official plan, their zoning bylaw, they're going to be including design guidelines for pre approved Adu plans. The program also include an incentive component where the municipality will be offering a $10,000 interest.
22:16
Very long per AU and there's have also provided some details around the implementation timeline and the cost. So specifically when you get to the implementation timeline, they've included a start date here. Specifically, that start date is within the half time frame. So after April 7th, 2022, they've all included a completion date here, which is also within the half's lifespan if you will. So that's outside or excuse me inside of of 2026, the end of the program and then there's their.
22:46
Committed cost category here as well. So to Cleo's point earlier, this is their estimated, estimated or best guess in terms of the cost of the program, will, will, will cost the program, will cost them I guess and specifically here we are looking for this to include staffing as well and consultant fees. So something to keep in mind as you're projecting that out. When we move down to the expected results, you can see that there's two numbers here. The first one is the estimated number of permitted units the initiative will incent.
23:18
To close earlier point, this is across a 10 year time frame or the life of the initiative. So in this example here the municipality is projecting that the additional dwelling unit program will create 2250 units within the 10 year timeframe. More specifically for the housing Accelerator fund, we see this next projection which is the estimated number of units the initiative will incent within the three-year projection. So the half life cycle I hear the municipalities projecting 1350 units will be created as a result of this specific initiative.
23:49
And the last box here is the other expected results where you'll be able to provide some additional context on how you you will achieve these results. So here you can see the municipality again has been very specific. They've pointed out how many units the program will be creating annually against the overall total of their dwelling units. They included the proposed 5 year run span of the program in its current form, noting that there could be A at a five year window could be some changes to the program and some revisions.
24:19
And then they've also added at the bottom at kind of a justification for the cost, if you will, noting that in this case this initiative is planning to refund itself or replenish itself as those loans get repaid in the 5th year.
24:32
An important note is we saw some questions coming up leading into the session around the growth projections. Uh, so specifically here at time of application in your action plan, we will be asking you to provide expected results and growth projections tied to each initiative in that expected result column or in those boxes there at an initiative level. When it comes to reporting and this was the question we had on the annual reporting, what would the projections look like when it comes to if you're successful when it comes to your annual reports will be reporting?
25:02
You're increasing the number of permits at the overall level, so you won't be asked to report individually at the anniversary of your contribution agreement. That would be happening at the overall level and specifically here in year 2 will be requesting micro level permitting data from successful applicants. So we'll be able to help confirm the number of permits that have been created in each year.
25:25
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide titled "Evaluation Criteria." Screenshot of a sample evaluation criteria page fills the screen. Two important areas are offset with numbers 6 and 7 within yellow circles. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
So in terms of how CMHC will be evaluating your application, um, the first step is actually done by you, the applicant, the municipality. And here you'll be self assessing against our evaluation criteria, which is also in our pre application reference material. And there's two groups of criteria. Once you've done your self-assessment and submitted your application, CMHC will then evaluate your assessment, verify it, validate it and finalize the scoring before returning back to you with your eligible funding amount and the contribution agreement.
25:56
Um, so the first set of this criteria is the connection back to the program objectives. Um, there's four program objectives here. Um, there are detailed in the pre application reference material. You will see them in the portal for sake of time today, it won't go through them all. Biggest take away from this specific criteria is that you'll be asked to select all that apply and you must. Your initiative must connect to at least one of them. So once you've identified how many objectives you connect to here, you then will also be providing an explanation in the box.
26:26
Hello.
26:28
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to an animated slide titled "Evaluation Criteria." Points 6 and 7 from previous slide appear in dark text boxes in the top left corner of a blurred photograph of a construction scene. Point 6, Objective supported, transitions to an arrow pointing to a brief description of the criteria. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
So to summarize, you're gonna connect back to each of the objectives that your initiative connects to. That can be must be a minimum of 1, can be up to a total of four, totally up to you. However, you can make those connections.
[Visual: The same animated slide transitions the 6. Objective supported arrow back to a box and transitions the 7. Explanation box to an arrow pointing down to a brief explanation of the criteria.]
Then in the explanation box, you'll be connecting your initiative to those objectives and justifying your connections. So this is a pass fail section. So we're really just looking for a brief outline of three to four sentences to highlight how your initiative meets that selected criteria. And in that description you're describing the relationship there. So in the case where your initiative.
26:59
Have a direct relationship back to the criteria we ask that you make it clear and elaborate on the impact to the accelerated to the acceleration of housing supply at the end of the day. So if anything else that's the key piece to connect back to is the initiatives impact to the acceleration of housing supply.
27:17
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to slide titled "Tips from Daniel," a sample applicant used to illustrate the evaluation criteria requirements. A prompt to answer three questions about your initiative is offset in yellow with remaining text in white over a dark background. Photograph of imaginary applicant Daniel appears to the left of the screen. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
So we have tips from our imaginary applicant, Daniel here.
27:21
So in terms of trying to identify which objectives your initiative connects back to, there's three kind of questions you would be asking yourself. The 1st is how will this initiative reduce barriers to housing supply and development approvals, How will it speed up the development of housing supply and then how will it foster the development of complete, affordable and or climate compatible communities.
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions back to the Initiative example slide, this time filled in with information about Daniel's initiative. Evaluation criteria screenshot fills the screen. Decorative photograph of a residential development appears to the right. Video image of the presenter and some participants appears to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
So if we flip back to our initiative example here, the additional dwelling unit program this municipality has mentioned has pointed out that it connects to all four of the program objectives.
27:52
Totally acceptable. Um. And in doing this, they've in the explanation category. They've done a really good, concise job at connecting it back to each of these four objectives. So you can see that each sentence they have in this explanation connects back to one of those objectives or tells that story of the objective. So the first sentence there connects back to the impact on approval timelines and the revisions to the planning process that would be happening through the zoning bylaw amendments and official plan amendments. The second sentence connects to the complete and low carbon community.
28:22
Objectives. Um, so you can see that they've actually hit two objectives in that one sentence. Again, very concise, very perfect in that sense. And the 3rd and final sentence connects back to program, provides program details that explain how it's connected to creating attainable units, increasing housing affordability by creating those attainable units. So, really, elegance. Again, you'll want to spend some time crafting that language, and that's where starting your application early will really benefit you.
28:48
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a second set of evaluation criteria. This slide highlights four criteria: Duration; Timeliness; Supply Impact; and System Impact, each identified by numbers 8 to 11 in yellow circles to the left of the criteria. Screenshot of the criteria page fills the screen over a light background. Video image of the presenter and some participants appear to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
The second set of criteria we have, uh, there's four of them here. This is more of a deep dive on the initiative itself. We'll be looking at duration, timeliness, supply impact and system impact.
29:00
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to an animated slide titled "Evaluation Criteria – 2." Points 8 to 11 from previous slide appear in dark text boxes above a blurred photograph of a construction scene. Point 8, Duration, transitions to an arrow pointing to a brief description of the criteria. Video image of the presenter and some participants appear to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
So diving a little deeper, we start with duration. So duration is really an assessment of how quick an initiative can be implemented. So here we're looking to see when the initiative will start and when the initiative will complete. Ideally, your initiative will complete within two years or within a year of the first year of the program, so 2023 to 2024 or by 2024. But it is totally acceptable for the initiative to go towards the end of the program as well. The key piece here is when you're setting up these timelines and setting your duration, make sure you're the duration you're setting in this evaluation.
29:32
Criteria matches your start and end date for your initiative and also matches the start and end date for your milestones, which we'll dive into in a moment.
29:42
[Visual: The same animated slide transitions the 8. Duration arrow back to a box and transitions the 9. Timeliness box to an arrow pointing down to a brief explanation of the criteria.]
Timeliness, So this criteria sounds very similar to duration, but it has a very different focus. So for timeliness, we're really focused on when you expect to realize those net new permits that the initiative is aiming to create. So when would you expect those permits to start rolling in once the initiative has finished and we'll dive some into that. You'll see that in the example in a moment here as well.
30:04
[Visual: The same animated slide transitions the 9. Timeliness arrow back to a box and transitions the 10. Supply Impact box to an arrow pointing down to a brief explanation of the criteria.]
Supply impacts, this is more of our quantitative criteria outlining how the initial will contribute to the growth in housing supply in your community. And this can be expressed either as a percent in percent in terms of the increase of priority housing types. So as Cleo mentioned, how the number of units you're creating in the multi unit missing middle category or multi units in proximity to transits or multi multi unit other categories or you could express this as the contribution of that initiative towards the overall total half incented.
30:34
An account. A key piece here is when you're developing the initial part of your application, your initial growth projections, setting up the the future projections for the next few years in section B of the application. You'll want to keep those numbers handy as to determine your supply impacts. They'll be crucial to doing that, so you'll want to have them handy when you're looking at this category.
30:55
[Visual: The same animated slide transitions the 10. Supply Impact arrow back to a box and transitions the 11. System Impact box to an arrow pointing down to a brief explanation of the criteria.]
And finally, system impact is very much focused on identifying how initiatives will transform or improve the housing system in the long term. So here again to close earlier point, looking for things like how is the initial improving the permitting process, how is it, how long term is the impact that it will be having? Will it outlive the half? How large the geographic geographic impact of the initiative? Is it impacting a large portion of the developer land? Is it increasing the predictability or sustainability of the development process?
31:27
Is it, uh, contributing to climate resiliency, All those pieces. So it's a lot to try and bake in there, but we're recommending 3 to 5 sentences here. It's going to be a lot to put in there. But again, if you're able to be concise and clear to the point you'll see in the example, you can actually do this quite well and you'll satisfy the criteria.
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions back to the Initiative example. Screenshot of the application fills the screen over a light background, this time with criteria answers filled in. Decorative photograph of a residential development appears to the right. Video image of the presenter and some participants appear to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
So flipping over to our example, you'll see here in duration the municipality for their additional dwelling unit program has put within one year. So within the first year of the program, they're expecting to deliver the amendments to the zoning.
31:58
By law, they're gonna be implementing all the policy changes, creating those design guidelines and creating the incentive funding program.
32:05
In terms of timeliness about how long it will take them to start to achieve those additional permitted units as a result of the initiative, they projected that the permits will start to be realized in October 2024. So really great here that they've provided us with an exact date makes it very clear, very concise in terms of when those permits would be coming in. On the supply impact side, they've noted that the if the proposed zoning bylaw amendment is passed, it's projected to contribute 30% of the half incented units. So here this one initiative alone is contributing 30%.
32:36
Out of the half incented units, the units that are being created as a result of the program to the total. So again, very clear, very easy for us to see how it's contributing to their action plan. And then the final category of system impact, you can see that they've provided some details on how quickly the initiative will be put into place. They know that the initiative will last or is expected to contribute units over the next 10 years and that this initiative will impact about 67% of the municipal land area, so a large geographic impact.
33:07
In the community covers the vast majority of it, so the scale of it is very, very large. The longevity of it is very long and it's done very quickly and can happen almost an immediate impact, So you can see what that high systems impact looks like.
33:22
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to slide titled "Milestone." A screenshot of the Milestone area of the application fills the screen over a light background. Number 12 appears in a yellow circle to the left of Milestone 1. Video image of the presenter and some participants appear to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
Um, diving in a little deeper. So in your initiative, we mentioned earlier you're going to have milestones, UH, which help explain the progress you're making towards your initiatives. So the milestones look very similar to the initiative descriptions. You have a milestone title, a milestone description of what work is being done is attached to that milestone, as well as a start date and a completion date. The key message here is that you must have at least one milestone attached to an initiative, and you can have as many milestones as you think relevant for your initiative, again, when you're thinking about the start and completion dates.
33:53
Where you'll be wanting to make sure that your start date, so arguably your first milestone, the start date there will match the start of your initiative and then the last milestone, its completion date should arguably match the completion date of the initiative. Might be some exceptions there, but generally that's what we will be looking for. So take that into consideration as you're crafting your milestones and you'll see in a moment. In the example when you finish your milestones, it almost should look like a mini project plan. You'll see a number of milestones, all the activities sequencing one after the other.
34:25
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide titled "Milestones." Point 12 from previous slide appears in dark arrow-shaped text box above a blurred photograph of a desk holding paper graphs and charts. The arrow points to a brief overview of the Milestone requirements. Video image of the presenter and some participants appear to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
In terms of what these milestones mean, they are very important for you to provide detail and and make sure they're very comprehensive as they will be helping CMHC to track and monitor your progress. So again, we will be watching to make sure your milestone dates match the duration section as well as the initiative start and completion dates. And a final note there that these your progress towards your milestones is included in your annual reporting should you be successful in your application. So we will be monitoring your progress as mentioned, so this could have impact towards your advances.
34:56
Think very carefully about your milestones, make them very concise, very detailed and make them very reasonable, of course.
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions back to the initiative example. A screenshot of the Milestone page fills the screen over a light background, this time filled with application information. Decorative photograph of residential buildings appears to the right. Video image of the presenter and some participants appear to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
So in looking at our initiative example, what this could look like on paper. So in this case, in our additional Dwelling Unit program, the municipality has identified 3 milestones for the initiative. The first milestone is the Official Plan and Zoning Bylaw amendment approvals. You can see their start date matches the initiative start date.
35:21
That was in the earlier in the presentation, um the second milestone is hiring consultants developing out those Adu design guidelines and the final milestone is the implementation of the Adu incentive program with the completion date matching the completion date roughly of the initiative itself. So you can kind of see here it's you get that project scheduling sense that's happening here and you see in each description they're telling us the activities that are associated with those milestones to help us understand what work is happening at what time and.
35:52
They're reporting they will be, um, providing us with information about whether those activities have taken place.
35:58
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide titled "Tips from Lance," outlining some strategic items to consider when preparing an application. A prompt to be strategic is offset in yellow, with remaining text in white over a dark background. A photograph of imaginary applicant Lance appears to the left of the screen. Video image of the presenter and some participants appear to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
So again a tip from a fictional applicant here, Lance, be very strategic in developing your action plan. As Cleo mentioned earlier, we're really looking for a diverse set of initiatives, a nice mixture between those short and medium term initiatives that might contribute to the permit count and those medium to long term initiatives that hit that systemic change, transformational pieces that the program is also aiming for. That final note that in terms of application prioritization, this is a competitive process. The housing accelerator fund is a competitive program. So we are looking for.
36:30
Highest scoring applications and it is those highest scoring applications that will be selected for funding. A last point as you're digesting all of this information and realize it's a ton of information, we had a question coming into the webinar around how long should I set aside to create my application?
36:48
Uh, this is difficult question for us to answer exactly is it kind of depends on the initiatives that you're proposing in your action plan and the approach that your municipality is taking. As you can see in the presentation today in our other materials, there's a large number of initiatives you could be doing. So we suggest not waiting for the portal to open, start working on your application now. It definitely would be helpful and something we suggest is creating a cross functional working group or a multidisciplinary and working group to build your application, gather your initiatives.
37:18
Build your growth projections. Um, this can help really help your initiative. So this means including folks from your planning departments, your housing divisions, your legal team, engineering, public works divisions. Also would encourage you in the Ontario context to reach out to your upper tier municipalities and your other partners such as your provincial, territorial governments and regional governments as well to develop your action plan and partner with them to see how you can include their initiatives in certain contexts. And we'll get into it in the Q&A as well. You can delegate your application to governments as well.
37:50
Dive into that a little deeper, but highly recommend establishing Networking group to help you build your application.
37:56
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide titled "Other Resources." Text is offset in yellow over a light background. Decorative photograph of an urban residential street appears to the left. Video image of the presenter and some participants appear to the right of the screen.]
Before we go to the Q&A and I'm moving quickly here, we did want to do a final shout out to some of our other materials.
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide listing some available resources, including the virtual community and HAP Micro-learning on CHMC/haf. Brief descriptions appear over a light background to the left. Decorative photograph of a young woman working on a computer appears to the right. Video image of the presenter and some participants appear to the right of the screen. "The National Housing Strategy" title appears over a yellow background in the upper right corner.]
There is a virtual community, the expert community on housing platform that shares ideas, can help you identify potential initiatives. So highly recommend joining that group, joining that conversation, learning from them, shout out to our other materials on the housing accelerator fund microlearning that's available on cmc.ca/HAF, a ton of content on there and we will be adding more. So as Cleo mentioned, we have our housing supply.
38:27
Growth target walkthrough, our micro learning module, we have our housing supply growth target calculator as well as coming soon developing out the half action plan initiatives and providing more examples. So thank you for your patience. Thank you for suggesting this a ton of information. I'll pass it over to Marcia who will take us into our Q&A.
38:47
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at CMHC.]
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide titled "Questions and Answers." Title is offset in yellow over a light background. Decorative photograph of an urban residential street appears to the left. Video image of the Lucas Reinhardt, Cleo Corbett and the speaker, Marcia Jean-Baptiste, appears to the right of the screen.]
Wow, thank you so much Cleo and Lucas. That was a ton of information and great information. So we'll give you a minute to catch your breath, but really only for a minute as we just collect the questions I've come that have come through. We do have some time to get to believe all the ones that have come in, in the event that we do run out of time. Don't worry though, we will be posting the questions in the document on our website along with the recording of this presentation. So we'll just get to it now so we can just get started.
39:19
So our first question,
[Speaker: Cleo Corbett – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
sorry Marcia Oht, yes, can can I just mention one thing I I forgot to put it in in the presentation and I know it was outstanding. We got a lot of questions from small communities and and kind of asking for advice around putting together a strong plan. And I know on on the list of participants I can see some of you who I know from small communities. I would just say that often small communities.
39:48
Have the ability to be a little bit more nimble and and uh can sometimes um implement things in in a really creative and more uh quick way sometimes than other bigger centres. So and and I also know that there are a lot of small communities that innovate in this space.
40:08
So just encourage you to put forward initiatives that you think will, uh, help create more supply and more diversity in your community. So, um, just just, yeah, wanting to, uh, put put that out there for those smaller municipalities. Sorry, Marcia, and thank you.
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at CMHC.]
No, it's OK That's great. Thanks, Cleo. OK. So our first question, could you speak to exactly how the minimum housing growth rate of 1.1% based on permitted units is calculated? Is it one per 11.1?
40:39
Percent growth over last three years, or year over year.
[Speaker: Lucas Reinhardt – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
40:46
So the one point, uh, sorry, could you repeat that last part? Is it one point?
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at CMHC.]
Yeah, is it, is it? Yeah. Is it 1.1% growth over the last three years or over or year over year?
[Speaker: Lucas Reinhardt – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
40:57
So it is year over year. At the end of the program, UH, there is an expectation that your growth will be at least the national average of 1.1% um. So at the end of the program that's where your and again we're talking about growth rate measure against permit count. So understanding that permits are arguably even easier to achieve than housing starts. So we would be looking to see that your annual permit growth rate is going to be at the 1.1% which is the national average.
[Speaker: Cleo Corbett – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
41:26
And maybe can I just add Lucas, so and it and it is over the life of the program. So we are looking for an average that exceeds 1.1. So you could say in your projections that you know things are a little bit tough right now. We're estimating .8 this year, but next year we're going we're anticipating 1.5 and in the third year 2% we would look at the average of those three years.
41:56
That needs to exceed that 1.1%.
[Speaker: Lucas Reinhardt – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
42:01
That's a great point, Cleo. Like definitely when you're doing your projections in that other expected results column. Make clear your assumptions as well, because that context clear provided is exactly what we'd be looking for.
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at CMHC.]
42:13
Awesome, great. Thank you. Um, do we have a timeline on how we'll on when we'll notify notify successful applicants?
42:23
Considering you know this is 45 calendar day window for them to submit,
[Speaker: Lucas Reinhardt – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
So we yes and it's dependent on when the portal will open. So we do have a a plan that by end of year we'll have those contribution agreements out the door to get started so that the program can get up and running this year. The exact timeline is still TBD as we are waiting for the portal to be completed. We are projecting that this will be done in early summer. So you can kind of expect.
42:52
That's, um, by fall type time frame, you would be hearing back from us about whether your application was successful.
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at CMHC.]
43:01
Great.
43:02
UH, the CMHC have a required historical time horizon for the baseline housing projection. Five years? 10 years.
[Speaker: Cleo Corbett – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
43:11
Other, Yeah, So, So we, we aren't person prescriptive in your methodology. So we've seen communities using the last three years, the last five years and some will look over a longer time frame. What we are looking for though is for you to be as accurate as possible. So you're going to give us a little bit of an explanation on your methodology. We're going to check that against census trends.
43:42
And and and really communities are using their best information that they have UM and then their best estimates uh to move forward with those growth projections.
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at CMHC.]
43:56
Perfect. Would an initiative be eligible for both multi unit missing middle and multi unit transit oriented and affordable top ups or only one or the other?
[Speaker: Lucas Reinhardt – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
44:12
So we would be asking that you would connect your initiative back to the most relevant category. We do want to avoid double counting, um. The key piece is to take pay close attention if you're linking it to our multi unit in close proximity to transit. I believe Cleo, the close proximity is defined as 1.5 kilometers I believe. Is that correct?
[Speaker: Cleo Corbett – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
44:32
Yes, yes, that's correct.
[Speaker: Lucas Reinhardt – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
Yeah. So you'll be wanting to pay close attention to those definitions and make sure that the units are in in that close to proximity 1.5. And then if if not, you would be looking to attach to another category, but we would be looking for you to identify only one to avoid that double count and select the one that you believe most relative most relevant for that initiative.
[Speaker: Cleo Corbett – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
44:56
And I will just add that, um that's the typology piece, but you can stack the affordability incentive on top of that. So and I'm I know I'm hand talking a lot today, but I feel like it helps people's understanding. So we've got a base per unit amount, then there are incentives for the unit typology and then on top of that is an affordability bonus if you will for affordable and non market housing.
45:26
Nothing.
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at CMHC.]
45:30
Great. I'm a hand talker too, Cleo, so don't worry about it. I'm just sitting on them right now. So uh, question #5, will we, will we be required to project incentive units for non supply initiatives or can that be left blank?
[Speaker: Lucas Reinhardt – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
45:46
Great question. It it could be left blank. So for example, uh an E permitting platform that you're looking to procure the supply impact could be 0 and that's totally acceptable. Just not looking at our evaluation criteria, supply impact is one of the four that you'd be trying to connect to. If you're only if in say any permit example the number is 0 for supply, you would want to make sure that it has a strong systemic impact and what you know you wanna make you wanna communicate that to us in your evaluation to tell us the story of how this is changing.
46:17
Your local process, how it's improving local process, how in the long term it might contribute growth. So that would be the story you'd wanna tell, um is that, well it doesn't have an immediate supply impact within the Housing Accelerator Fund window. You wanna let us know, OK, maybe within five years or 10 years when our E permitting for example, is up and running, we would actually be processing permits faster. We'd be realizing additional permits in say five years. So in that systemic category you'd want to tell that story and in your initiative description as well to to to paint the picture but.
46:48
To summarize, yes it could be. The answer could be supply impact 0, but make sure you're picking up points in other areas if you can.
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at CMHC.]
46:57
Will this program be applicable to municipal districts and counties?
[Speaker: Lucas Reinhardt – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
47:03
Great question. So uh, in terms of the Ontario context, that is an important distinction with our upper and lower tier structure. For context, I'm located in Ottawa and from Renfrew County. So in my hometown it would be the lower tiers that are eligible applicants. Generally speaking, in Ontario, it's the lower tiers that have responsibility over land use planning and the issuance of building permits. So generally speaking, the lower tiers would be the applicants. That's not to say that upper tiers can't support lower tiers in their applications.
47:34
Or that lower tiers couldn't choose to designate their application to their upper tier municipality. There will be a function in the portal to designate your application similar to our other programming does with intermediaries. If you do that, the upper tier can then apply through the portal on your behalf. And if upper tiers are supporting their lower tiers and doing this, it's important to note that the upper tier is must be applying for an individual lower tier. Their portfolio applications won't be allowed through the Housing Accelerator Fund as we need to do.
48:04
Apples to apples comparisons. So in developing out action plans, the upper tier would then be developing out individual action plans and submitting individual applications for each lower tier that has requested their support. That being said, lower tiers were encouraging you to reach out to your upper tiers for support and to Co create these applications. There's a ton of potential linkages and a lot of great support that can come from that. So I guess in summary, it's not required that lower tiers engage their upper tier, it's highly suggested.
48:35
And if there's capacity issues, or should they wish to, they can delegate their application to the upper tier.
[Speaker: Cleo Corbett – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
48:41
And maybe if I could just add some regional district context for British Columbia. So regional districts are absolutely able to apply, especially like where they're controlling land use and issuing building permits in say, electoral areas. So we invite those applications. Also, municipalities may look for support, much as Lucas talked about in Ontario, municipalities may look to their regional district.
49:12
For support UM we would just need to ensure that UM, uh those plans are worked out together and and that the application is kind of a joint application on the behalf of the municipality. And and I will just say I I saw some very specific questions on regional districts I think from Gerald in Columbia, Shuswap.
49:40
Let's touch base and we can get into more detail on those questions. Thanks
[Speaker: Lucas Reinhardt – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
and it's a great point to clear if you have specific questions. I think the half section of our website also points you to the contact centre. If you reach out to the contact centre, they'll be able to connect you with answers on the very specific questions.
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at CMHC.]
50:01
Thank you. Um, next question. I see that a housing needs assessment is not required until the third reporting period. But if your application contains an HNA, then your application gets an extra five points. Does that mean that applications that contain a current HNA will score higher?
[Speaker: Cleo Corbett – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
50:19
So that's correct. Um they they will get um some extra points in applying and and we want to ensure that these housing needs assessment stay current. So I requirement of the program is that housing needs assessments will be updated every five years. So depending on the date when you developed yours, you may need to update it within the life of the housing accelerator program. I will just say that.
50:49
That is the case for most of British Columbia based on the timelines of when people um created and and adopted their housing needs assessments. Anything to add there Lucas,
[Speaker: Lucas Reinhardt – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
No, that's great. And that's the same case for Ontario as well. You'll see in our documentation that we were referring to a recent housing needs assessment. In terms of recency, I think it is defined in our material, but just in case it is not, we're looking for recent as being within since April.
51:20
2020, so within two years of the announcement date of April 7th, 2022. So yeah, in terms of the overall points that's being scored for having that recent housing needs assessment, as mentioned it is some minor points. So yes, you would be getting more, but it is minor in terms of the overall total of points. So almost viewed in least personally for me almost like a say a tie breaker in a very tight scenario.
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at CMHC.]
51:49
Hey, are there any suggestions on how to set the baseline projections for affordable housing?
[Speaker: Cleo Corbett – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
51:59
That I know that's tricky Um but uh hopefully uh if you do have a housing needs assessment, um potentially you know your percentage of non market housing stock within your community. Have you had significant projects over the last few years and if So what is the average percentage of non market affordable housing that you're creating? So again this is a bit of a look back in time.
52:30
On average, how much affordable housing are we creating annually? And then looking at with your initiatives and action plan, do you have some specific initiatives that are targeted at affordability and increasing affordability in your community and forecast an estimate what that increase would be in number of units annually created of affordable housing And yeah that's that's like a little bit of a.
53:00
Funding top up or that if you can look at an initiative that increases that affordability piece.
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at CMHC.]
53:11
Hey, thank you. Uh. Based on this presentation it appears that the application with drop down windows is in fact the action plan. Is this correct? Please clarify the difference between the two.
[Speaker: Lucas Reinhardt – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
53:25
So the application, the initiative example you saw today, um the portal won't look exactly the same as this. Um, the IT will be very similar, but of course that this is just more of a mockup. Today. The fields that you're being asked to collect are the same, so you know the details. If you're looking for. What we'll be looking for are in the Pre Application Reference Guide and Appendix A.
53:50
In terms of the UH, UH, yeah, the portal itself though it will be a different approach and you're actually plan includes the initiative, the initiatives and all their milestones. Your housing growth projections, housing growth, supplied housing supply growth target and then how you're contributing to those other estimates around multi unit housing and proximity to transits multi unit housing missing middle and those other categories to break those down. So that as Cleo mentioned earlier in the presentation, there are those other elements that.
54:20
Are included in your application the action plan of which is the largest piece, the vast majority, some other details about your municipality, the applicant name, so on and so forth and other attachments. But yes, generally speaking, the action plan is the bulk of your application. Anything to add to that, Cleo, I think I captured that maybe.
[Speaker: Cleo Corbett – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
No, no, that's great. And I would say indeed and that I think that's part of why we're here today. Is that your action plan?
54:51
Indeed forms the largest part of information that we're looking for in the application.
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at CMHC.]
55:01
OK. We've got a couple more. I think we're actually going to make it. Let's see what happens if municipalities that are accepted into the half fail to meet their targets for new housing units during the three years.
[Speaker: Cleo Corbett – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
55:13
So um, this is I think why we're trying to focus on progress, Um. So and I'm going to hand talk again here. So you get 25% of your funding upon signing the funding agreement, so 25% at that point, then another 25% in both years one and years two that is based on your progress made toward implementation of your action plan.
55:45
Then it's only in the last year that last 25% that we will look at the number of units that were created through your action plan and incentives over the life of the program, the actual results of permitted units and that's what that last payment will be based on. We absolutely understand and appreciate that municipalities do not typically control development in the sense of of you.
56:15
You don't typically develop the housing, um, you need to depend on uh developers, industry and the market to do that. So that's why half is designed in such a way that the majority of your funding will be based on the things that you control your progress made towards your action plan.
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at CMHC.]
56:37
OK. And I think this next question, I think he just answered it, Cleo, but just wanted to make sure, um, about the funding, how is it attached to the examples that Lucas provided? Is it based on the estimate of units in the application or the actual number of units created after the fact I think?
[Speaker: Cleo Corbett – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
56:53
Your funding amount will be in in the application, in an approved application will be based on your projections, your housing growth projections, with and without half, and that difference between your baseline and the half incented units. It will also be based on those different typologies and your anticipated affordability. So this really gets to we encourage you to be bold, we encourage you to be aggressive.
57:24
But we really encourage you to be realistic as well, um, because payment of the approved funding will be based on what you're achieving.
[Speaker: Lucas Reinhardt – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
57:35
And to round that out as well, there is a category for that systemic change as well. So as you're putting that together, of course you're it's that kind of sweet science between those short to medium term things that are delivering the units for the program and the transformational pieces to help you pick up scoring in those other categories too. So yes, it's the action plan is definitely the bulk of the what you're applying for here.
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at CMHC.]
57:59
OK, so I'm just looking at the time and I'm scrolling. There's still a few questions left. Um, as mentioned.
58:08
We can collect them for and put them in like we will collect them. We have them all written down here. Um, and put them in the Q&A. Uh.
58:17
Document that will be attached to the UM. I think it's gonna be in two places. I think you'll get it in your closing e-mail, like your thank you e-mail for coming and also on our website. Unfortunately, we will not be able to get to all of these questions that are left. As I was scrolling down, I'm like, oh, I said we were almost done, but we were not.
[Visual: PowerPoint transitions to a slide titled "Thank you." Title in yellow font over a dark background. Decorative photograph of a woman shaking hands with another person, not visible on screen, appears to the left. Video image of the Lucas Reinhardt, Cleo Corbett and the speaker, Marcia Jean-Baptiste, appears to the right of the screen. National Housing Strategy and CMHC logos and Canada wordmark appear on bottom of screen.]
But thank you to everyone for coming. Thank you so much. Thanks Cleo. And Lucas, as mentioned this presentation, the previous introductory presentation are going to be online a lot.
58:47
Along with a rotating list of frequently asked questions. So just keep checking our website and also check your emails so you'll be getting some more invitations and more notices once the portal does open. In your thank you e-mail, there is going to be a link to a survey. Please, please, please respond to the survey. We count on your responses to help us improve and also help us, you know, continue doing what we're doing fantastically. So on that, thanks again for your attention. Thanks for coming today. Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday.
[Speaker: Cleo Corbett – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
59:19
Thank you so much everyone, and thanks, Marcia.
[Visual: PowerPoint closes. Video image of all three presenters fills screen. Icons of some webinar participants appear to the right.]
[Speaker: Lucas Reinhardt – Specialist, CMHC Municipal Relations Team.]
59:23
And a pleasure. Thank you.
[Speaker: Marcia Jean-Baptiste – Senior Account Representative, Outreach at CMHC.]
59:25
Bye, bye.
[End of presentation.]
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