The federal government is planning to launch a catalogue of pre-approved home designs to speed up the home-building process for developers.
Housing Minister Sean Fraser announced Tuesday the federal government will begin a consultation process to develop the catalogue in January.
Fraser says this brings back a policy from the post-Second World War era when the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. developed blueprints to speed up the construction of homes.
B.C. launched a similar initiative last month.
"When many thousands of soldiers were returning home to be reunited with their families at once, Canada faced enormous housing crunches," he said.
"We intend to take these lessons from our history books and bring them into the 21st century."
Many of the post-war home designs — including those for modest detached homes known as strawberry box houses — are still scattered in neighbourhoods across the country to this day.
The modern-day version of the catalogue will instead focus on low-rise builds, such as small multiplexes, student housing and seniors' residences, then explore a potential catalogue for higher-density construction.
The goal is to better ensure housing builds can be fast-tracked for approval from the CMHC and others, while also promoting larger-scale production through factory-based construction.
"I have seen estimates from experts in the field indicating this could cut up to one year off the time for construction on a project," Fraser said.
The minister says the catalogue should come together sometime next year.
The idea of a catalogue of pre-approved blueprints was also one of several recommendations in a report co-authored by housing expert Mike Moffatt that was released earlier this year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 12, 2023.
Nojoud Al Mallees, The Canadian Press
