GOHBA News

New research shows that over the next decade, 83,000 homes need to be built in Ottawa to keep up with a growing number of new families. Ontario’s population is growing rapidly, which will require the building of one million new homes in the next ten years. Baby Needs a New Home, a new research paper…

The residential construction industry is facing a significant shortfall in skilled labour in the coming years. According to BuildForce Canada, our industry will have to hire over 100,000 new skilled workers in the coming decade across the country to address mass retirements as our workforce ages – or 20% of the entire skilled workforce. In…

Council recently directed City Staff to develop a residential Vacant Unit Tax based on staff’s framework and a review of similar regimes elsewhere. Staff’s recommendation is a 1% tax on properties if they are vacant for more than 184 (cumulative) days during the previous calendar year, which would mean a $4,150 bill on a $415,000…

For over a year now I’ve been talking about the need for Ottawa to be building homes Up, In and Out. Our population is expected to increase by 400,000 people from 2018 to 2046 (or 40% growth from our current 1 million residents). How are we ever going to supply enough homes to meet our…

Ottawa has a lot of growing up to do. I’ve repeated this stat often in our updates and I’ll continue to do so – Ottawa is expected to grow by an additional 400,000 people over the next 25 years. This is a 40% increase over our current population of 1 million. All of those people…

Each year at this time I talk about resolutions for housing in Ottawa for the coming year. For 2021 I would still like to see the public conversation focus more around the contribution homes make to our communities, to our fellow citizens, and to ourselves and our families. Last year the City committed to seeing…