The District of Ucluelet is celebrating a $2 million cash infusion from the federal government to put towards affordable housing strategies.
The district announced last week that it had scored $2.095 million from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Federal Housing Accelerator Fund.
“The primary intent of this funding is to encourage local governments to implement initiatives that will speed up housing development and increase supply,” the district’s announcement reads.
It explains that the town’s municipal council endorsed a grant application to the fund on June 8
“This application proposed a wide range of housing-related projects and initiatives that could help expand the supply and improve the quality, diversity, and affordability of housing in Ucluelet,” it reads.
“Ucluelet’s successful bid features five initiatives that include updating bylaws, guidelines, and policies; streamlining processes; realigning regulations to match housing needs; pre-zoning lands for more attainable housing types; developing incentives for the creation of housing; as well as creating resources to support development of secondary suites, accessory dwelling units, and infill housing.”
Mayor Marilyn McEwen was elated to hear the district’s application hit paydirt and believes the funding will make a solid dent in the community’s housing crisis.
“We are very excited to be one of a very small group of rural municipalities that were approved for this grant funding. The District has been working on many of these initiatives over the past ten months and will be continuing to improve our systems and policies leading into the future,” she said, through the announcement. “We would like to thank Minister Fraser for supporting Ucluelet through the Housing Accelerator Fund, which will not only help advance key priorities of Council related to housing but help offset some of the costs of sanitary capital improvements which are a key element to advancing future housing and development initiatives.”
More information on the district’s strategies around spending its federal bounty can be found at Ucluelet.ca/Housing.
The announcement adds that Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation launched the Housing Accelerator Fund as a “new performance-based grant initiative to distribute $4 billion in federal funding to local governments and First Nations across Canada.”
