Details are scarce about how CBRM will spend millions in federal housing money

The Cape Breton Regional Municipality’s mayor says planning about how it will spend millions of dollars in federal housing money has been transparent, even though many of the details have not been made public.

Last week, the prime minister announced CBRM would be getting $11 million under the housing accelerator fund to help the municipality hire staff, reduce red tape by making development applications available online and build more housing by providing grants to developers.

How that would all work has not been discussed publicly, but after a council meeting Tuesday, Mayor Amanda McDougall told CBC News the topic did come up at previous meetings.

“Our previous director of planning was here a number of times talking about what was going to be in this application, so this has all been quite transparent,” she said.

At a council meeting June 19, former planning director Michael Ruus outlined an application for nearly $30 million, but it does not say how grants would be decided, how much they would be or what would happen if CBRM got less than it was asking for. 

Asked for more details, McDougall said providing grants to developers was a “big part” of the application for federal funding and said the process could be similar to the way CBRM gives sustainability grants to non-profit groups.

‘I would refer to staff on that’

Those are handed out by a committee of staff using set criteria, according to a long-established policy.

Asked about the criteria for handing out money to developers, McDougall said she’s not sure if those have been created yet.

“I would refer to staff on that,” she said. “I’m not part of that. There is no place for elected officials to be in those types of decision-making situations in the CBRM. That will be a policy staff-based decision.”

In a news release from the prime minister’s office last week, McDougall was quoted as saying a housing work plan had been created. 

Pressed for details on that, the mayor said the application for funding that went to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation was essentially a work plan, because it was so detailed.

“I’ve never been through such a rigorous negotiation process, that’s for sure, [with] CMHC coming back and saying, ‘How are you going to meet those targets? Tell us in the work plan how you’re going to do it.’ They’re very, very particular, but it’s because you need to be able to meet those targets,” McDougall said.

Acting planning director Karen Neville later sent CBC News a summary of the housing accelerator fund initiatives in an email and said staff would present proposals on possible grants to council at a later date.

Other housing initiatives underway

A housing expert at Cape Breton University has said the $11 million will be helpful, but will not be sufficient to address the shortage in CBRM.

Meanwhile, the municipality is looking for a consultant to design an overall housing strategy and a municipal task force is months late in issuing a report on affordable housing. 

The task force report was expected last fall, but in December, McDougall said it would be ready in January.

This week, the mayor said it was delayed by the February snow storms.

McDougall said the task force report would be available publicly “very, very soon” and that it would not affect the search for a consultant because that is a separate process.

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