Some community leaders are calling on Tantramar council to take steps to access federal and provincial funding that could help build infrastructure needed for new housing growth in the region.
“New housing requires adequate infrastructure,” resident Natalie Donagher told Tantramar council at their July 9 meeting. “However, we understand that infrastructure funding dedicated specifically toward affordable housing, is not being accessed by Tantramar.”
Donagher was reading from a letter signed by Pat Estabrooks and Margaret Tusz-King, the co-chairs of the Tantramar-Strait Shores Community Task Force. The letter refers to provincial funding available through the Regional Development Corporation, and also the federal Housing Accelerator Fund.
“Only the municipality can apply for [this funding],” said Donagher. “If this funding is not applied for by the municipality, the added costs for new infrastructure will have to be paid for by current taxpayers through property taxes and municipal borrowing. Or, the new affordable housing might not happen at all.”
HAF now closed to new applications
Unfortunately, one of the main programs that Donagher referred to is closed to new applications, at least for the time being.
The federal government announced their Housing Accelerator Fund in March 2023, a $4 billion dollar fund to help “build the housing we need, faster” according to the program’s tag line.
Dozens of projects across the country have been approved under the program, including 16 in New Brunswick. Nine of those are in the “small/rural” stream of the program, with projects in places like Grand Bay Westfield, Cap Acadie and Sussex.
CHMA called up Scott Hatcher, the CAO of Sussex, to find out more about how and why the newly amalgamated town was able to secure $3.2 million in funding for infrastructure and land use planning, as well as other housing readiness projects, through the Housing Accelerator Fund.
Hatcher says he could see a growth trend developing in Sussex in the years just before the town and village were amalgamated by the province. The town had started updating its municipal plan during the pandemic, and Hatcher says that set the stage for property owners to start building more and faster, to match increasing demand that started during the pandemic.
Then after amalgamation, Hatcher told his new council “we’ve got a unique opportunity here, but we also have a very unique problem where we’re growing at five times our normal rate.”
Hatcher told the council that there was “prerequisite work” to get done, assessing the town’s needs in the face of growth. “How do we make sure that the lagoons are the right size, that we have the proper number of wells… all of that work has to be done,” recalls Hatcher. “And then the announcement came out that there was a Housing Accelerator Fund and we just kind of said, ‘well, there’s an opportunity. We’re not missing out on that one.’”
A year after it was announced, Sussex was approved for $3.2 million in Housing Accelerator funding. That was just under half the amount the town applied for, but it will still pay for a laundry list of initiatives. The town is developing partnerships with non-profits interested in affordable housing, amending their zoning bylaws to allow for more houses in some neighbourhoods, and updating their infrastructure planning, to make sure they have the streets, sidewalks, pipes and sewage lagoons to accommodate more people.
The infrastructure planning funding could not come at a better time, because like Tantramar, Sussex is also facing integrating two separate water and sewer utilities. Hatcher:
“We’ve decided to spend the rest of 2024 identifying the needs for the sewer system,” says Hatcher. The town has engaged a Moncton engineering firm to look at the system and “identify the cost of sustaining development that we’re seeing in the last number of years, and what we need to do in the future, to keep it going.”
The Housing Accelerator projects also include initiatives like exploring the possibilities for modular construction, providing permit-ready parcels of vacant land, and implementing flood mitigation strategies.
The need for a housing needs assessment
One of the requirements for a successful Housing Accelerator Fund application was a housing needs assessment.
The need for a similar assessment has been discussed in Sackville town hall since the housing crunch started, but neither Sackville nor Tantramar has taken one on. Recently, the Southeast Regional Service Commission published a regional needs assessment looking at the entire southeast region.
In Sussex, Hatcher says the town decided to take the chance and commission a housing needs assessment in time for the first application round of the HAF. Unlike Sackville, which pays to fall under the purview of Plan 360, the planning department of the Southeast Regional Service Commission, Sussex contracts out its planning tasks to private consultants. Hatcher is a fan of the arrangement. “It actually works for us,” says Hatcher. “It’s more cost effective we have greater control over the development in Sussex.”
In late summer 2023, Sussex hired Dillon Consulting to create a needs assessment, and the company turned it around in less than four weeks. The needs assessment cost the town about $15,000, and was submitted along with their application in September 2023.
Second call for municipal action on infrastructure funding
The Housing Accelerator Fund saw so many applications from municipalities across the country that the federal government decided to extend the program, but left it open only to those who had already applied in the first round, which means Tantramar is not eligible. But there are other funding opportunities.
New Brunswick’s Regional Development Corporation runs a “Preconstruction and Infrastructure Fund to Support Housing,” announced in 2023, which offers up to $22.5 million per year towards creating “the conditions to increase the number of housing developments in the province and create more safe and affordable housing for New Brunswickers.”
The Tantramar Strait Shores Community Task Force is the second group to come before council asking for support in securing federal and provincial funding for infrastructure development related to housing. In May of this year, the Freshwinds Eco-Village Housing Cooperative presented to council asking them to consider pursuing funding oppportunities.
CHMA reached out to Mayor Andrew Black and all eight Tantramar councillors by email for reactions to the request from the Tantramar Strait Shores Community Task Force, but we have yet to get a reply.
“I think our community is no different than Sackville or any other community that you know,” says Hatcher. “There’s a need in the community for affordable, quality type housing… We probably won’t catch up for a number of years to come, but we’re trying.”
