HOUSING TURNS THE KEY TO CRUCIAL NOVA SCOTIA ELECTION ISSUES
All the parties vying for the votes of Nova Scotians agree on the importance of housing.
“Affordability is an issue that permeates all aspects of life for many Nova Scotians right now but we know that housing is the largest driver of that,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said in an Oct. 31 announcement in Dartmouth.
“If people can afford their housing, they can think about how to afford everything else because shelter is the number 1 concern.”
In introducing the Liberal platform on Nov. 4, leader Zach Churchill said the party document is a contract with Nova Scotians that would ensure more affordable and accessible housing “by building 80,000 new homes by 2032.”
At a leaders forum in Halifax on Monday, PC Leader Tim Houston said housing is a nationwide issue and Nova Scotia is not immune from it.
“The solution to the housing crisis is more housing,” Houston said. “We’re on a good path. We have a plan and the plan is working.”
Paths and plans for housing and rentals are major cogs in each party’s platform.
In October 2023, the Houston government released its long-awaited housing strategy, pledging a $1-billion investment over five years to create conditions necessary for 40,000 new housing units across Nova Scotia.
The government’s five-year plan was driven by a provincewide 148-page housing needs assessment report, also released in October 2023 by Turner Drake & Partners after gathering feedback from 21,000 Nova Scotians, 115 employers, and more than 100 organizations.
The needs assessment report estimated that at the then-current pace of construction that puts 6,000 units on the market each year, there would be a shortage of 41,200 housing units by 2027-28 and 44,000 by 2032 if aggressive action is not taken.
The shortfall in October 2023 was pegged at 27,300 units.
Houston said Monday that the province is ahead of its target of 40,000 new housing units across the province by 2028.
“We need to build more, we know that.”
Aside from the aforementioned housing plan, the PCs launched a secondary and backyard suite incentive program to make it more affordable to add on to or renovate a home and made what Houston calls the largest investment in public housing in 30 years.
The PC platform says it has removed barriers to housing starts by amending the HRM charter to shorten approval process for residential housing developments.
Going forward, the PCs promise to make more vacant land parcels available to communities for $1 on the condition that they be developed as affordable housing options and to help Nova Scotians buy a first home by decreasing the down payment to two per cent from five per cent.
The Liberal platform sets as its goal the creation of a housing system which would build those 80,000 homes by 2032, a rate of 11,000 new houses per year.
“Because of Tim Houston’s reckless drive to double the population, we need to put our foot on the gas and build 80,000 homes in the next eight years,” Churchill said. “The PCs don’t mention housing in their platform, and while I agree with many of the NDP policies, they just don’t go far enough. Our plan will ensure more homes are built so Nova Scotians have a roof over their head that they can afford.”
The Liberals would establish increased minimum density standards across the province and ensure appropriate zoning to encourage density near the province’s universities so students have a place to live.
The Liberals promise to eliminate restrictive covenants or exclusionary zoning that prevent building, to rethink municipal zoning standards to reduce red tape and incentivize housing starts and to launch a full review of the property tax system to lower taxes and incentivize housing starts.
The Liberal plan calls for doubling the stock of non-profit housing by 2032, eliminating the tent crisis by procuring 500 mini-home shelters and to build and support 2,000 new co-op units by 2032.
On the rental side, the Liberals promise better rent control, with a cap based on inflation, market conditions and vacancy rates.
The NDP housing promises include putting an end to spiralling rent increases by capping annual rent hikes at 2.5 per cent.
The NDP plan calls for providing $900 in housing rebates for low-income renters and homeowners, with household incomes under $70,000 a year, establishing eviction and renoviction protection rules that work for both tenants and landlords and to create a rent-to-own starter home program for first-time home buyers with a household income of less than $100,000 per year.
“The NDP will protect renters and build homes that people can actually afford,” Chender said.
The NDP would focus on non-market and co-op homes with a goal of building 30,000 new affordable rental homes, leverage federal funding, work with municipalities to identify land to be used for housing construction and enable municipalities to levy a tax on vacant lots that are zoned for residential development but not being used.
The NDP would tackle homelessness by reversing the rent supplement eligibility decision.
Both the Liberals and NDP would ensure that no one needs to pay more than 30 per of their income for shelter and both promise to close the fixed-term lease loophole.
The Green party says it would collaborate with other MLAs to ensure Nova Scotians have the right to housing that meets basic needs, increase investment in public housing and other forms of non-market housing and support non-market housing for low-income Nova Scotians, those at risk of homelessness.
The Greens would support price competition from the private sector, restoring a robust and competitive housing market like the one that existed before governments abandoned investment in public housing and address homelessness by implementing a housing first program with additional services for mental health, addictions, and employment assistance.
The Greens would lower the rent cap to three per cent, create an actional ban on rental discrimination against families with children and tighten requirements for “just cause” around evictions with a firm renovication ban.
The Green party joins the Liberals and NDP in promising to establish a residential tenancies enforcement unit to deal with landlord-tenant disputes.
Story by: Saltwire
