You have to go back in time to possibly understand why the country’s federal housing agency believes simple, standardized and modest model homes could help get houses in Canada built cheaper and faster.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation turned back the clock to the late 1940s and dusted off its first housing design catalogue, which the agency says spurred construction of a million new homes across the country and had a major influence on urban planning and development.
The federal Crown corporation, which is mandated to deliver the government’s housing programs along with financing and insurance options for buyers and builders, released new 50 low-rise designs this month that include laneway homes, rowhouses, stacked townhomes, fourplexes and sixplexes. The designs are tailor-made for different regions of the country, with Alberta getting seven of its own unique plans.
The goal is for the model homes to add “gentle density” in existing neighbourhoods.
The architect who led the design team for Alberta says while there are some common “strands” among the seven designs, affordability was the driving force behind the project.
“All of the different building types share a certain DNA, which is based on practicality and efficiency and affordability,” said Michael Dub, principal architect at Edmonton-based Dub Architects.
The first CMHC catalogues were introduced after the Second World War, and then again in the 1970s.
The agency says the post-war edition inspired the creation of a million of the so-called victory homes and strawberry box homes across the country, in part for returning veterans and war workers. If you’re curious, the monthly costs for those homes ranged from $54 to $84, which included the mortgage payment, insurance, property taxes, heat and water.
While CMHC didn’t provide a spokesperson for an interview, it did answer questions via email. The agency says the new design catalogue will be available for homeowners, builders and other small developers “to deliver housing quickly and cost effectively.”
It says the homes will improve affordability by reducing “construction costs and timelines by simplifying approvals and reducing barriers to entry in the home building sector.”
It adds “standardized designs reduce the upfront time required for planning, design and approvals.”
While the agency says final architectural design packages and more details will be released later, within the sector, there is still a mix of restrained enthusiasm and doubt as to whether these models will get built.
Too basic? Too modest?
A Victoria-based builder says it depends on whether the homes will be sold or rented.
“I think they work fine in terms of the rental market,” said Dale Degagne, who is the CEO of Missing Middle Solutions.
“The rental market tends to be less picky and choosy about the nice-to-haves.” But he says the modest model homes are missing some features that have become standard for many people.
So he predicts there won’t be much “uptake” if the units are sold as condos.
“[They’re] missing things like walk-in closets, en-suite bathrooms, things that people kind of demand to have in their housing when they’re purchasing.”
WATCH | Seven designs to help solve housing crisis in Alberta:
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is relaunching its postwar housing catalogue with 50 “simple, modest” designs. Seven models are specifically designed for Alberta. Some builders say there’s potential but cities need to adapt to make it happen.
Of course designs and blueprints can be changed, but that would defeat the purpose of having standardized, ready-to-build homes — and it would likely increase costs.
Overall, Degagne says bringing in standardized model homes would likely save five to six per cent on design costs — not insignificant, he says, but not enough to “move the needle” on affordability. And he says it could be difficult to adopt the same plans in different municipalities, which have their own sets of rules and zoning regulations.
‘A really good start’
A builder and developer who specializes in missing middle housing says the updated housing catalogue does a really good job inspiring Canadians to see what missing middle housing could look like in existing neighbourhoods.
“I think this is a really good start,” said Alkarim Devani, who has built a number small and mid-size multi-family projects in Calgary.
Missing middle housing refers to duplexes and multiplexes — generally anything bigger than a single-family home, but smaller than an apartment building.
Devani wants municipalities to move quickly to allow these designs, but he agrees with Degagne that the reality of different rules in different cities could be problematic.
“I could tell you that the same drawing set in Calgary is not implementable in Edmonton,” he said, referring to the two cities’ different zoning regulations that cover such things as parking requirements, setbacks and how much of a building lot the house can occupy.
The organization that represents Alberta builders and developers agrees.
Scott Fash is the CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association of Alberta (BILD). He says he sees more potential for the accessory dwelling units, or laneway houses rather than the four- and sixplex options, because of different zoning rules.
“I don’t see the existing infill builder in Edmonton or Calgary using these designs,” he said.
“They’ve kind of figured out their own secret sauce in terms of what the customer wants versus what they can build.”
Fash says the bigger multi-family models would likely require rezoning in most Alberta municipalities, which would likely trigger a lengthy approval process, and would include a public engagement process, and comprehensive development permit applications that would have to address issues around building height, scale and setbacks — all of which would add time and cost.
He says there’s also the issue of whether existing infrastructure, such as sidewalks and sewers, would have to be upgraded to accommodate the new residents.
“I’ll be curious, you know, I could be wrong, maybe these designs allow, or lower the barrier of entry for somebody new to get into the infill market, which isn’t a bad thing at all either.”
Affordable?
Will these homes actually be affordable?
That’s a tough question to answer, according to Devani. He says if a catalogue laneway house results in a $20,000 saving for a builder, that doesn’t necessarily mean a tenant or buyer will pay less than market rates.
But he does see a glimmer of hope where a laneway homeowner would find a good tenant, build a relationship and then be less inclined to charge exorbitant rental prices or bring in excessive rent increases.
He says with so many single family homes across Alberta — nearly one million according to the last census in 2021 — there’s an opportunity to increase the rental stock by tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of units, by adding a laneway home or turning a garage into a rental unit.
“If we can figure out how to enable more Canadians at getting involved in solving the housing crisis, I believe it will make a meaningful difference in affordable housing,” he said.
Zoning rules factored into designs
The architect, Dub, says zoning rules were considered during the design process.
“We did a lot of work to make sure that the building types were conforming to municipal zoning requirements.”
He stresses again that affordability was the main driver — and that’s why some of those “nice-to-have” features were not included.
“The philosophy was, we have to help bring as many new units online as quickly as possible, because there’s an issue of, housing supply not meeting demand at the moment and so affordability and simplicity were key.”
Challenges, barriers, magic bullets
Sasha Tsenkova, a professor of planning at the University of Calgary’s school of architecture, planning and landscape, applauds the catalogue design as a good first step, but cautions it’s not a “magic bullet” that will address the challenges and barriers that homeowners and the building industry face when trying to add “gentle density” to existing neighbourhoods.
Tsenkova says existing planning frameworks that support single family homes need to change. She says it’s a “reasonable” solution to transform an existing garage into an accessory dwelling unit for aging parents or children who want to live independently but don’t have the means “to get on the housing ladder in a very prohibitively expensive housing market.”
“These are very reasonable solutions that speak to efficiency in terms of using and recycling what we have, the land, the opportunities, the existing urban services and access to transit,” she said.
She says there needs to be more “robust” financial support for homeowners and builders, more straightforward approval processes that aren’t subject to so much evaluation, public engagement, appeals and other hurdles.
In 2020, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reported Canada ranked 37 out of 38 for municipal approval process timelines due to restrictive zoning practices, excessive red tape, and outdated processes.
Last year, the City of Calgary says single family, semi-detached and duplex developments in developed areas met the 90-day approval target 69 per cent of the time, with the average being 80 days.
Missing middle, missing deadlines
In the northwest Calgary community of Sunnyside, designer and developer Mark Erickson showed CBC News an excavated building site where his company, Studio North, is building an eightplex where a single-family home once stood. He says the CMHC housing catalogue has potential, but for it to catch on, he thinks the city’s approval process for missing middle housing needs to be streamlined and sped up.
Erickson says rezoning for his project took six months, the development permit process took another eight months and required a second public hearing. That permit was approved in October 2024. They applied for a building permit in November and they’re still waiting for approval. The company was given partial permits to begin the excavation and footings.
“It’s really hard to make sense of doing this type of development if the planning and approvals process is so drawn out and so tedious,” said Erickson.
“It’s really hard to plan around the unknowns of how long it’s going to take to make a development happen.”
Calgary’s own design catalogue
Lost in the hoopla of Canada’s new housing design catalogue is the city’s plan to launch its own catalogue. It’s part of the city’s pledge to fast-track approvals for missing middle projects from several months to within eight weeks, according to an approvals coordinator with the city’s planning and development department.
A design challenge is being launched April 1. Builders and developers are being asked to submit their infill designs that meet the city’s minimum design criteria for two and four unit semi-detached, row and townhouse dwellings with secondary suites — the types of homes that still require a full development review.
Up to nine designs will be chosen for the catalogue. The models will be used by the city to fast-track infill development.
“We’re just looking for those designs that have already been through the process, the approvals process and hopefully something that would work well in the Calgary context, and that’s what we want to put in our catalog,” said Jessica Siriphokham.
What about CMHC’s designs for Alberta and how they could be used in Calgary?
“I wouldn’t say that in the future that we couldn’t look at those designs, make sure that they work for the context and add them to our catalog,” she said.
“We just have to see what that looks like.”
CMHC says it will release final architectural design packages for its new catalogue homes later this spring.
