In a move meant to help cities and towns facilitate the construction of more homes, the Ontario government intends to loan municipalities up to $1 billion to build, expand and refurbish water systems they rely on.
On Thursday, Premier Doug Ford's government announced that it will soon begin accepting municipalities' applications to the "Housing-Enabling Water Infrastructure" (HEWI) lending stream. Municipalities will be able to apply for funding from the new credit stream that fits within a pre-existing loan program run by Infrastructure Ontario starting Monday, according to the government.
The Ministry of Infrastructure said in a news release that its HEWI loan program is meant to complement other provincial programs, like the Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund (HEWSF) — including the province's so-far $1.2-billion grant program for municipal drinking water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure projects.
"We want to put every option that we can on the table to allow more communities to participate in building homes," Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Paul Calandra said on Thursday.
The first round of HEWSF grant funding was open for the first four months of the year for municipalities to apply to. Ministry of Infrastructure information, obtained in response to freedom-of-information requests, shows it received more than 200 funding applications from the province's towns, cities, counties and regions looking for support to fund around $4.4 billion worth of planned water system projects.
As a result of its first intake of applications to the HEWSF program, the provincial government selected 54 projects for which it plans to provide $970 million in funding, according to information provided by the Ministry of Infrastructure. The ministry had a second intake round for applications for HEWSF grants open from late-summer to mid-fall.
"On the infrastructure program (HEWSF) that we (put) out, there was a lot of communities that participated that got approval but many more that said, 'Please, help us out, because we can get many more homes built,'" Calandra said. "Whether it's 25–30 homes, or whether it's a couple hundred, it has also been very evident from our municipal partners that they need help on getting shovels in the ground."
The Ford government has been under fire recently at Queen's Park for Ontario's shortcomings on housing as construction of new homes has stalled in recent months, seemingly making its main housing goal — getting 1.5 million new homes built in the province from 2022 to 2031 — increasingly challenging to reach.
