Sudbury planner says the city is 'well on track' to meet its target of 3,800 new homes by 2031

A confident city council pledged to work towards building 3,800 new homes in Greater Sudbury in the next seven years as part of the province's goal to deliver 1.5 million new homes by 2031.

That's an average of roughly 40 new builds per month, a figure that might seem ambitious to some in the local construction sector. 

But senior planner Melissa Riou says that target is well within reach. At a city council meeting on Tuesday night, she pointed out that the city was already on track to exceed its 2023 target. 

Ontario's data suggests that Greater Sudbury achieved 91 per cent of this year's target, but Riou says the city's own data shows the community is largely exceeding that number. 

That discrepancy can be explained by the fact that the municipality and the province count new builds differently.

Ontario uses the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation's definition, which looks at the number of housing construction projects started in a given year. 

"That differs a little bit from the city's current methodology, where we track all unit creation," explained Riou. 

Unlike the province, Greater Sudbury includes things like long term care facilities, retirement homes and secondary dwelling units in its number of new builds. 

Sudbury only focuses on the number of building permits it issues

Riou adds the province has acknowledged "that there are a few tweaks that need to be made to this methodology" and expects calculation directives to change in the near future. 

Another aspect to consider is that Greater Sudbury is only looking at the number of building permits it issues, whereas Ontario only considers the number of foundations laid. 

"We're measuring our progress through the number of permits that we've issued because at that point we've done our job and it's up to the developer to construct the unit," said director of planning services Kris Longston.

In her presentation to council, Riou stressed that "there were a number of factors outside of the city's control" in terms of its ability to reach its 2031 target. 

These include economic factors, the labour force and the legislative landscape, according to Riou. 

Aggressive but attainable, says head of local association

Sudbury and District home builders association president Derek Cashmore believes these factors could potentially pose a serious challenge for the city. 

He says 3,800 new homes in seven years is a "highly aggressive but also attainable number" if there's a strategic plan in place. 

He points out that there's a lack of skilled trade workers across the country and in the region. 

"We don't have enough people to swing the hammers, operate the equipment, dig holes, do the carpentry, bricklaying, drywalling, painting and roofing," he said. 

Cashmore believes there needs to be efforts to recruit existing workers who are employed elsewhere, in addition to more active promotional campaigns in high schools. 

"We need to start touching base with them a little bit earlier, like grade 7 or 8," he said. 

He said the availability of construction materials could also eventually prevent Sudbury from reaching its goals. 

"The supply chain for building materials is already strained to unseen levels," he said. 

Cashmore says he's recently seen many projects pausing, stopping or slowing down because of a lack of materials or insufficient number of skilled trade workers.

Greater Sudbury is the latest northeastern Ontario municipality to make a building pledge to the province as part of its wider goal to deliver 1.5 million homes by 2031. 

Earlier in October Sault Ste. Marie pledged to build 1,500 new homes, and North Bay promised to create 1,000 of them.

Municipalities who reach 80 per cent of their target will be eligible for Ontario's $1.2 billion Building Faster Fund. 

They could access some $400 million in annual funding over three years, a sum that would cover the cost of building a dozen new homes.