Tools for overcoming institutional obstacles to non-market housing production in the Montreal Metropolitan Area

Poster

Public policies and regulations can create a hostile framework for non-market housing projects, threatening their viability. Our project aims to document financial, political and institutional barriers to non-market housing production in the Montréal Metropolitan Area (MMA) by partnering with non-profit housing actors, whose projects are limited by such barriers. Through a detailed study of these barriers in real-world scenarios, we can develop tools for other actors (in Montréal and other Canadian metropolitan areas) dealing with the same issues, and provide guidance to legislators in drafting new policies.

To do so, this research will:
1- Identify financial and institutional gaps threatening the survival of non-market housing production from two MMA-based non-profit organisations,
2- Document applicable legislative and regulatory solutions to address the institutional barriers that these organisations are facing,
3- Develop guidelines and policy recommendations to reduce or eliminate barriers to non-market housing production in the MMA,
4- Create a training module targeting institutional actors who are willing to revise their strategies and policies for supporting non-market housing production in their municipalities.

This project will be realised in four steps: problem identification, literature review, brainstorming, and recommendations. We will first organise workshops with our two non-profit partners to identify political, fiscal, and institutional barriers they face. Second, we will develop a learning platform of methods and solutions being used worldwide to facilitate non-market housing production, drawing on the BSH policy database among other sources. Third, we will discuss barriers and potential solutions with non-market housing actors in the MMA. Finally, we develop a set of contextualised recommendations for overcoming barriers to non-market housing production focusing on the MMA.


  • Reshaping the Financialization of Housing
  • Innovating in Responsive Land Practices

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