Can more federal cash ramp up pre-fab housing? Trudeau pitches funds

The federal Liberals want to boost pre-fabricated housing and are again laying out millions of dollars in more spending as political pressure to tackle the housing crunch builds.

Friday’s announcements on more funds for pre-fab construction and as part of a series of announcements teeing up what is set to be a housing-focused budget.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the announcement in Calgary, Friday, with a $600 million price tag.

“We need to build more homes in factories if we’re going to solve the national housing crisis. Now, there’s advantages to building in factories. You can do it faster. In fact, twice as fast as traditional stick build homes,” Housing Minister Sean Fraser said at the Calgary announcement.

“You can also work around the clock. You can advance automation to become more efficient. There’s a number of different advantages that can make it more cost effective and more time effective to actually build the homes that we need.”

Of this, $50 million is set aside for a to launch a “Home Building Technology Innovation Fund.”

The stated goal of this is to help the private sector scale up and commercialize building techniques for modular and prefabricated homes.

It’s part of the work to roll out the Housing Design Catalogue, which aims to put a modern spin on the old wartime housing program.

The government says the catalogue will carry an $11 million price tag this year and include up to 50 types of prefabricated home designs.

To access a previously announced $6 billion housing infrastructure fund, Fraser said provinces and municipalities will need to bring in pre-approved zoning for catalogue homes and fourplexes.

Speaking in Toronto, Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman said that her party’s plan would not