Mississauga gets $113M in funding from feds for housing

The federal government has confirmed its housing funding for the City of Mississauga after strong mayor powers were used to reverse council’s decision on four-home units—a decision that could have cost the municipality millions.

On Monday, officials said that Mississauga would get nearly $113 million as part of an agreement to fast-track over 3,000 housing units over three years.

The money comes from the Housing Accelerator Fund, a $4-billion pledge by the Justin Trudeau government meant to incentivize municipalities to update their zoning and permit systems to allow for faster construction of housing.

As part of the agreement with Mississauga, the city will use the funding to support affordable housing, accelerate approval turnaround times, contribute to a review of land to unlock density, and expanding permissions to crease the “missing middle housing in existing residential neighbourhoods.”

In a statement, outgoing Mayor Bonnie Crombie thanked the federal government for the funding.

“Given the severity and the complexity of this (housing) crisis, we need to be bold, work quickly and use every tool available to us,” she said. “This also means ensuring we are innovative and are building the right mix of housing, including the ‘missing middle’ in our neighbourhoods.”

In October, Crombie used her executive power to reverse a council decision that would have made the city exempt from this funding.

The motion referred the idea of allowing fourplexes to be built “as a right” back to staff for further consideration, instead of implementing it outright..

At the time, Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Sean Fraser said the city should be “getting rid of antiquated approaches to zoning” and indicated that Mississauga’s application for funding would be rejected as a result.

Crombie said that by using her powers to ensure fourplexes are allowed to be built will not only aide with the city’s funding eligibility, but will also allow for “much-needed housing to be build in our neighbourhoods for the next generation.”

Multiple Ontario municipalities have also signed agreements with the federal government, including London ($74 million) and Vaughan ($59 million).

While city officials may welcome the funding, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has criticized the federal government for bypassing provincial jurisdiction.

“You can’t have a federal government going into a certain town or certain city and dumping funding and not even discussing it with the province,” Ford said in Halifax at a meeting of Canada’s premiers.

“That's unacceptable. We call it jurisdictional creep.”

Many Ontario municipalities are eligible for provincial funding in addition to the money being offered by the federal government.

A $1.2 billion fund was set up by the Ford government over the summer to help cities reach provincially-set housing targets.

The government said municipalities that achieve 80 per cent or more of their annual target will be able to access the funding.