Development fee cuts alone won’t solve housing affordability crisis: CMHC

The federal housing agency says slashing municipal development charges won’t be enough on its own to make homes affordable again across Canada.

Development charges are fees cities impose on developers and are mainly used to pay for infrastructure that supports new builds.

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The federal government is spending billions of dollars to encourage municipalities to cut development fees in half to boost housing supply and improve affordability.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says in a new analysis that reducing or eliminating development charges could increase the number of viable projects in some cities by up to 14 per cent.

The agency says cities that already have high development charges would see the biggest boost from slashing those fees, while gains for other municipalities would be marginal.

The CMHC says development fees have a place in some cities’ fiscal plans and it’s unrealistic to think that eliminating those charges would restore affordability.