Ramping up home construction goal of city proposal

City council will consider an annual program that would review, approve and catalogue homebuilding plans to speed up new construction.

The program would apply to house and detached garage plans that are reviewed for building code compliance by city staff. After the plans are approved, the same set of plans could be used on multiple sites around the city, and multiple permits could be issued.

Builders would be given permits within five working days of a successful application, as opposed to the 10 working days mandated by the province.

Council’s property and development committee will discuss a report on the program next week. It proposes an initial fee for the city to review the plans, a reduced annual fee to renew the plans, and a 25 per cent discount on permit fees for builders who use plans from the program.

The program, which is subject to full council approval, would launch in 2027, city spokesperson Deborah Bowers said Wednesday.

Initial review fees for dwelling unit plans would be $500, with an annual renewal fee of $250, and detached garage plans would cost $250 to review and $125 to renew.

Mayor Scott Gillingham called the program a way to bolster the high rates of new home construction in the city.

“We’ve made real progress over the last four years. Winnipeg has issued more housing permits than any other previous four-year period on record, but we’re not going to stop there,” he said.

“We continue to look for ways to remove unnecessary barriers, to improve our processes, and get more homes built faster across our city.”

While standardized housing build plans aren’t a new concept in Winnipeg, the increasing interest in custom-built homes has contributed to pricing people out of the market for new builds in recent years, said property committee chair Coun. Evan Duncan.

He described the potential discount as “a great example of what was old is new again.”

“At the end of the day, I hear from young people in Winnipeg who desperately want to own a home,” said Duncan (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood).

“We are doing everything we can to be creative, and on occasion go back to what used to work, to try it again, to make an opportunity for a young person, or even someone who’s been living in an apartment or a rental, to buy that house and to call it home.”

A quicker process to get permits approved for more homes could make a dent in Winnipeg’s growing need for different types of housing, said Duncan.

“Typically, Winnipeggers see multi-family (units) going up, but that’s not what every Winnipegger wants,” he said. “A lot of Winnipeggers want their own home on a piece of property where they have their piece of grass and their driveway, and unfortunately, in the current market, that is not attainable for everyone.”

The Manitoba Home Builders’ Association met with city administration to discuss the program ahead of the report.

While the association did flag possible limitations — standardized plans may have to be altered for different lot sizes, and builders may need to make alterations to the plans that must be reviewed at a cost — the program would save builders money and time, said president and CEO Lanny McInnes.

“We see the benefit, for sure, of this approach,” he said.

McInnes pointed to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.’s design catalogue, published last year, which offers designs for a number of standardized homes.

Some of those designs don’t easily fit into Winnipeg’s building standards, McInnes said.

“(The city has) taken this approach instead, which is kind of a design-by-design review basis … it’s encouraging builders to utilize that,” he said.

The report will be presented to the committee Sept. 9.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca