Canada Plans to Ramp Up Housing Construction Using Preapproved Home Designs

The Canadian federal government announced on Tuesday that it intends to bring back a post-World War II effort to ramp up housing construction across the country by developing a catalogue of pre-approved home designs, according to reporting by CBC (12-12-23).

Housing Minister Sean Fraser said that the program is a reboot of a federal policy from the post-war era, when the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) developed straightforward blueprints to help speed up the construction of badly needed homes. “We intend to take these lessons from our history books and bring them into the 21st century.”

The modern-day version of the catalogue will instead focus on low-rise builds—such as small multiplexes, student housing, and seniors’ residences—then explore a potential catalogue for higher-density construction. The goal is to better ensure housing builds can be fast-tracked for approval from the CMHC and others, while also promoting larger-scale production through factory-based construction, CBC reported.

Design consultations will begin next month.