Montreal expands home-ownership assistance

Montreal is expanding access to its home-ownership assistance program to double the number of families eligible for assistance, Mayor Valérie Plante announced Tuesday.

For example, for families with children who buy a new property in the downtown core, the price limit will rise to $610,000 from $450,000.

Plante acknowledged that the previous maximum prices set by the program were increasingly unrealistic, given the surge in real-estate prices in recent years.

Speaking by videoconference, the mayor offered to work hand-in-hand with developers to achieve her election promise of building 60,000 new social and affordable housing units in the next decade.

“You are key players,” said Plante, who met with stiff opposition from the development industry over her administration’s so-called 20/20/20 bylaw, passed last year, which requires builders to include social, affordable and family-sized units in new housing projects.

She expressed willingness to work together with the industry to solve the housing crisis, attract families back to the city and build sustainable neighbourhoods.

UDI CEO Jean-Marc Fournier said the institute backs the city’s demands for a new fiscal pact with Quebec, since municipal taxes alone are insufficient to address pressing needs like housing and mass transit.

Fournier, a former provincial Liberal cabinet minister, said public transportation is under-financed compared with the road network. He called for a mileage tax to replace the gas tax, which subsidizes municipal infrastructure projects and transit.

Mileage taxes are based on the distance driven, not the amount of gas purchased, which is becoming less relevant as the number of electric cars increases.

Plante’s Projet Montréal party voted last April voted in favour of a mileage tax.

The need to diversify Montreal’s revenues is one area on which the city and developers are in full agreement, the mayor said.

She invited developers to work with her administration on developing new neighbourhoods like the Bonaventure-Bridge St. district, where a baseball stadium is no longer in the cards, as well as the former Hippodrome site beside the Décarie Expressway and a vast former industrial site in eastern Lachine.

The changes to the home-ownership assistance program will take effect Feb. 16.

Open both to first-time homebuyers and home-owning families with at least one child under age 13, it offers lump sum payments ranging from $5,000 to $15,000, depending on the location of the property and whether the buyers have children.

For families with children who purchase a property outside the city centre, the maximum price will rise to $540,000 from $400,000.

For families who purchase an existing property, the limit will increase to $725,000 — up from $630,000.

A single first-time buyer will now be able to get assistance for a property priced at up to $305,000 — previously $225,000. Couples will be able to obtain assistance for a property worth up to $380,000 — up from $280,000.

The program is funded jointly by the Société d’habitation du Québec and city of Montreal.

Since 2018, it has helped 6,808 households to buy a home, of whom 90 per cent were families with children.