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With around two weeks left as Saskatoon mayor, Charlie Clark is expressing concern that a plan by Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre to cancel the federal Housing Accelerator Fund if he becomes prime minister would negatively affect housing units already planned for the city.
Poilievre’s Axe the Sales Tax on Homes plan would cancel the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) in favour of removing the sales tax on new homes valued under $1 million.
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“I support reducing the costs of housing, but need to be very clear that the horse is out of the barn with the HAF,” Clark said Wednesday over Facebook.
He said more than 1,600 new rental homes are planned for Saskatoon, and more than 500 of them are below-market housing and are only being built due to the HAF.
“Cancelling this program would almost certainly mean cancelling most or all of these 1,600 new units, as they are tied together in the same developments,” Clark wrote.
In an interview on Friday, Clark said stopping the HAF would put developments into limbo and he’s not sure of the resulting legal or financial implications.
He said he can appreciate the goal to reduce costs, but stressed that stability and certainty are needed for these types of programs.
“My concern is that with these types of stop/start programs, municipalities and developers are ending up almost as pawns in the political debates and battles that are happening in parliament, and I haven’t seen this happen in this way before.”
In June, after hours of debating and discussing, Saskatoon city council passed a contentious package of zoning and land use changes set as conditions for the city to receive $41 million in federal cash to help address the tight housing stock and promote affordable housing.
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Clark at the time said the discussion around Saskatoon’s participation in the federal HAF has been “one of the biggest tests” he’s seen in the 18 years since he first joined council as a city councillor.
The plan has received mixed reactions, with some residents pointing out that other cities received more leniency from the feds and weren’t required to have the same permitted use zoning restrictions to get the funding.
Other residents have applauded the funding, saying this was a way to help address the housing crisis in the city in a swift manner.
Poilievre attacked the HAF during a news conference, calling it a “disastrous program that has led to less homebuilding and more local bureaucracies.”
Poilievre has criticized the HAF since the federal government began signing agreements with municipalities, saying it adds more bureaucracy without building any homes.
In a statement to The Canadian Press, Poilievre’s spokesman Sebastian Skamski said the Conservative plan to eliminate the GST on new homes under $1 million would “spark 30,000 extra homes per year,” reduce purchase prices by up to $50,000 and cut mortgage payments by almost $3,000 a year.
“Unlike their multi-billion dollar so-called ‘housing accelerator’ photo op fund, this common sense policy benefits all Canadians without bureaucratic applications and costly photo ops designed for Liberal political gain,” the statement reads.
Skamski did not address the letters sent by Conservative MPs.
The Liberal government first announced the $4-billion housing accelerator in the spring 2022 federal budget and topped it up with an additional $400 million in the most recent budget.
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