Ontario awards Sarnia $400K for surpassing housing targets

Premier Doug Ford announced a $400,000 investment to get more homes built in Sarnia. CTV London’s Lauren Stallone has more.

Premier Doug Ford was in Sarnia Ont., Thursday morning to award the city with $400,000 through the ‘Building Faster Fund.

“Two years ago, our government established the $1.2 billion Building Faster Fund to encourage municipalities to speed up approvals, issue permits and get shovels in the ground faster,” said Ford.

The province said the program provides funding to municipalities that achieve at least 80 per cent of their provincially designated housing targets.

“I want to congratulate Mayor Bradley and his whole team for his leadership in helping get more homes built,”said Ford.

The province says Sarnia beat its 2024 housing target by 198 per cent and Mayor Mike Bradley said they aren’t going to stop there.

“This money will be going to help develop the only area that we can expand in the city,” said Bradley. “To the east, Wellington Road, Malden Road area.”

Bradley said the money is groundbreaking for the future of Sarnia.

“3000 housing units can be created out of this money, which is huge for all sorts of diversity housing units,” said Bradley.

Minister of municipal affairs and housing of Ontario, Rob Flack, who was also in attendance Thursday, said this announcement addresses the issue that it costs too much and takes too long to build homes in Ontario.”

“We are in the midst of a generational housing crisis, generational, like we have never seen before,” said Flack. “Our population has grown significantly, and our housing stats have not kept pace.”

Flack said the government has recognized that change is urgently needed and he hopes the fund will make that change happen.

“We are rewarding municipalities who built homes with the funding for infrastructure because we know that without infrastructure you cannot build homes,” said Flack.

The Ontario government is also helping to speed up construction of new homes and infrastructure through the ‘Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act, 2025’.