Councillor says CMHC funding policies for affordable housing exclude the County, and rural areas

MARCH 12: UPDATE: In response to the story about the resolution, CMHC Audrey-Anne Coulombe, Senior Officer, Media Relations, said CMHC is confident in the data produced as part of its Rental Market Survey and its methodology. (see below story)

MARCH 11: Council has supported a resolution from councillor Phil St-Jean asking the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) to revise its funding formula, policies and scoring criteria to allow the County, and other rural areas, equitable consideration. It also invites the CMHC to come to the council table to explain its policies.

“Two sets of CMHC policy present barriers to the development of affordable rental housing and preclude rural municipalities like Prince Edward County from equitably competing for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation funding,” stated St-Jean.

The County, he reminded, has one of the lowest residential rental vacancy rates in all of Canada, less than 0.8 per cent.

“Prince Edward County has no less than 251 units of purpose-built affordable rental housing across five sites under development by our Affordable Housing Corporation, local non-profits and private sector developers to enable our working age youth, seniors and residents with disabilities access to affordable rental housing options,” he said.

The funding problem, he explained, is that current CMHC policy relies solely on the use of its own Rental Market Data Survey to determine average and median market rents to base funding approvals for new affordable housing construction.

“The CMHC rental vacancy survey is conducted on an annual basis in urban areas with populations of 10,000 or more, targeting only privately initiated structures with at least three rental units and that have been on the market for at least three months.

St-Jean notes a large discrepancy between the data collected by CMHC, compared to that maintained by the municipality, and states it “has a significant negative effect on accurately calculating median market rents in Prince Edward County.”

The County has been tracking local rental data since 2020 and maintains a database of rental housing stock and rental costs based on actual market supply, and publishes the information quarterly on its website.

The discrepancies are a major barrier to developers of affordable housing in rural communities like Prince Edward County from successfully receiving CMHC financing for purpose-built affordable rental housing.

St-Jean says the County is being excluded from being in the ‘Market Area’, a key determinant to receiving CMHC funding approval, thereby negating any affordable rental housing proposals in Prince Edward County from reaching the minimum scoring required for funding consideration.

His resolution states the County provides through various bylaw, official plan, policy changes including offering waivers and incentives to support the creation of new affordable rental housing stock, and Prince Edward County and all rural municipal funding applications must be considered equitably when forced to compete directly with large urban municipalities.

The resolution seeks an immediate amendment of the CMHC funding formula, policies and scoring criteria to be inclusive of locally generated rental market data in determining median market rents and vacancy rates which accurately reflect the realities in rural municipalities.

It also seeks that the CMHC Enhanced Apartment Construction Loan Program be amended to recognize Prince Edward County as a community within a market area in need of equitable funding consideration.

Further, it asks that the municipality, the Prince Edward County Affordable Housing Corporation and affordable housing developers be provided with the rationale behind the scoring applied to funding applications and, that a senior-level representative be invited to provide a presentation addressing concerns and inequities in the CMHC affordable housing funding programs and policies at the April 8, 2025 meeting of council.

Council agreed to have Mayor Steve Ferguson write a letter of support of the resolution, and invitation to Coleen Volk — President and CEO of the CMHC. It will be sent to the chair of the Eastern Ontario Warden’s Caucus; MP Ryan Williams, Bay of Quinte; MPP Tyler Allsopp, Bay of Quinte; Minister Erksine-Smith, Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities of Canada and others.

St-Jean noted the housing corporation had written its own letter along the same line and “interestingly, this afternoon I received a response from Coleen Volk… As expected, there were a lot of generalities in this letter, but I think they are taking notice. It is important that we follow though continuously advocating for the changes that are necessary; that we have identified as shortfalls in the CMHC funding programs and policies.

“I recognize that April 8 is very short notice, but I think my intent here is to let it be known to the CMHC that we’re serious and we want to have this conversation now, because every day that goes by, every month that goes by, our people are continuing to struggle to find affordable housing and we need solutions. We don’t need roundabout words and vague responses. The best way is to have somebody stand at the podium so we can actually ask questions.”

UPDATED:

“As part of our data collection process, we work with all municipalities to produce the most accurate and objective data based on our methodology,” stated Coulombe.

“Along with conducting CMHC’s Rental Market Survey, we also support the development of alternate methods of data collection other than surveys, which can lead to the production of timely and accurate information on the state of rental markets.

“It is important that the methodology behind any alternative methods be transparent in terms of the rent data being collected (actual rent paid by tenant, rent being asked by the landlord), the type of units for which data is being collected (single-family, apartment, townhouse), and to ensure the amount of data being collected is sufficient to produce statistically reliable summary statistics.”

She added CMHC staff remain available to discuss this with municipalities.

“Note that the Apartment Construction Loan Program (ACLP) underwent revisions in November 2024 that among other changes removed energy efficiency and accessibility minimum requirements, while maintaining minimum affordability criteria, in favour of an incentive-based approach to allow more flexibility to proponents. The ACLP is an application-based program and runs a competitive prioritization process where projects with high social outcomes and a demonstrated community need are selected.

“Two different scores are now used throughout the process. First, the social outcome score evaluates a project’s outcomes at the time of prioritization and project selection. This score was updated during the revisions in November and now distinguishes between rural and urban markets. It benefits rural communities by removing the impact of specific scoring questions that cannot be achieved in these regions. The affordability under ACLP is based on Median Household Income data and does not rely on local median market rent data.

“Second, the lending flexibility score determines the available loan terms once a file has been prioritized. It includes a Market Adjustments scoring category which compensates for challenging local market conditions. It does not impact funding decisions.”

She states the community and market needs are assessed when an application is submitted to the ACLP and must be clearly demonstrated.

“The Affordable Housing Fund (AHF) requires that a percentage of units rent for less than 80 per cent of median market rent. To achieve this depth of affordability, the AHF relies on low-cost loans and non-repayable contributions, as well as applicants sourcing external partners to contribute to the project. In areas where statistically reliable median market rent data is not available, CMHC may qualify projects based on comparable areas.”