The Ontario and Canadian governments have allocated $1 billion to support municipalities that do not impose development charges in enhancing critical infrastructure projects. Todd McCarthy, Ontario’s acting minister of infrastructure, Rob Flack, Ontario’s minister of municipal affairs and housing, and Jennifer McKelvie, parliamentary secretary to the federal minister of housing and infrastructure, made the announcement during the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference in Ottawa.
Under the new Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program (MHIP), each government level will contribute $500 million. The focus of the “non-development charge municipalities stream” will be on assisting communities in funding essential infrastructure such as bridges, roads, and water systems to facilitate new housing developments and safeguard the existing housing stock.
This funding initiative supplements the $8.8 billion previously committed by the provincial and federal governments in March, as stated by McCarthy in an interview with CBC. In a recent development, municipalities were informed in June that they would need to cover 10% of the new infrastructure costs to access the $8.8 billion funding. However, Flack clarified to CBC that municipalities under the new stream would not be subject to this requirement.