List of Pre-approved Home Designs will be Expansive
In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday morning, Canadian Housing Minister Sean Fraser teased that an expansive list of pre-approved home plans would be included in the upcoming Federal housing design catalogue, including:
- fourplexes
- sixplexes
- row homes
- garden suites
- modular designs
Revival of An Old Program
From the 1950s to the 1970s, the Government of Canada, through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (and before that the Wartime Housing Limited), created a series of standardized housing design catalogs that were used to help Canada accelerate the production of housing.
In an announcement on December 12th 2023, the Government of Canada indicated that it would be reviving this strategy and exploring potential pre-approved catalog designs to help support “higher density construction, innovative forms of construction, including modular and prefabricated homes.”
“In order to build more homes faster, we need to change how we build homes in Canada. We are going to take the idea of a housing catalogue which we used the last time Canada faced a housing crisis, and bring it into the 21st century.”, Housing Minister Sean Fraser said at the time.
Government Estimates this Program Could Shave 1 Year Off of Construction Time
Fraser is optimistic that this program will get homes built around one year faster.
“I have seen estimates from experts in the field indicating this could cut up to one year off the time for construction on a project, so more than just getting more units, getting units built more quickly will also be part of the advantage”, Fraser added.
