$44M will go to developers, homeowners who build affordable rental housing in Mississauga

Mississauga has unveiled a $44-million plan to make rental housing more affordable — and realistic — for people looking for a place to live in the city.

Under a Community Improvement Plan approved at city council on Wednesday, developers and homeowners will receive grants to help get much-needed affordable rental housing built across Canada’s seventh-largest city in the next several years.

City officials said they expect the initiative to deliver more than 300 new affordable rental and gentle density units over the next 36 months.

The city has set aside $44 million with which to fund the grants, which will be available starting this fall through 2027 (or until the funding is fully allocated) for various types of rental units.

City officials said the aim of the financial incentives program is to help quickly increase Mississauga’s supply of:

• affordable and below-market rental units in multi-unit buildings such as apartment buildings
• gentle density rental units such as basement apartments, garden suites, triplexes and fourplexes in lower-density areas

Mayor Carolyn Parrish, whose new Mayor’s Housing Task Force met for the first time on July 10, has said on several occasions she’s committed to finding ways to get more affordable rental housing built in Mississauga.

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“It’s a key area of focus for our council, city staff and my Housing Task Force. We must use every tool we have to get more homes built,” Parrish said in a news release issued on Wednesday. “I encourage every homeowner and developer who wants to build affordable rental units in Mississauga to come forward and take advantage of this incentive program. The time to get building is now.”

Mayor Carolyn Parrish chaired the inaugural meeting of a new housing task force in Mississauga on July 10. (Photo: City of Mississauga)

In presenting the plan, city officials said market rents in Mississauga “far exceed affordable rent levels for even moderate-income renters. Renter households require a yearly gross income of almost $100,000 to afford a one-bedroom apartment in the city.”

They added the grant-based initiative will help developers, landowners and homeowners offset some of the costs needed to deliver new units at affordable rates.

The housing-focused Community Improvement Plan was developed in consultation with industry stakeholders and is designed “to work in tandem with funding sources from other levels of government for new market rental and affordable rental construction,” officials said.

Andrew Whittemore, Mississauga’s commissioner of planning and building, said he’s optimistic the plan will help mitigate some financial hurdles developers face when building affordable units.

“The availability of affordable rental housing is a critical issue in Mississauga and financial incentives are a powerful tool to help stimulate construction,” he added. “As we developed this program, we listened carefully to our industry partners. To address their feedback, we increased the total amount of grants available per unit.”

The city said the new program also sets the stage for “two innovative housing solutions” that could help encourage more affordable rental units:

• Tax Increment Equivalent Grants that could be used, with council approval, to help offset a portion of the increased property tax associated with the redevelopment of multi-residential units
• City Land Acquisition program to allow municipally-owned property to be acquired and sold at nominal or below-market rates for affordable housing projects

The incentive program will be funded, in part, through money received from the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, the city noted. In December 2023, Ottawa and Mississauga announced a $112.9-million agreement to help deliver more homes and improve affordability.