St. Thomas is ahead on most of its federal housing promises. On one, it is far behind. Now the City is offering a discount to help it catch up.
At its October 5th meeting, council backed a plan to cut building permit fees next year for apartment buildings five storeys or taller. Permit applications in 2027 will pay at least 50% less than today’s rates, with the fee scaled to the size of the building.
Why the City is doing this
The money at stake comes from the Housing Accelerator Fund, or HAF. It is a federal program, run by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, that pays cities to get more housing built faster.
Under its HAF deal, St. Thomas has to issue building permits for 1,204 new homes between January 2025 and the end of 2027. If it reaches that target, along with some smaller targets inside it, the City gets its 2028 payment of $2,019,855.
A home counts toward the target when its building permit is issued, not when it is finished.
Where St. Thomas stands
As of August 2026, permits had been issued for 559 homes. That is 46% of the total, with 645 still to go. A City staff report to council says the biggest yearly share of the target falls in 2027.
The City beat its first-year goal in 2025, with permits for 346 homes against a target of 251. Two of the smaller targets are already met:
- Missing middle homes, such as townhouses, semi-detached homes, fourplexes and other multi-unit buildings: 368 so far, against a target of 296.
- Affordable homes: 98 so far, against a target of 96.
The weak spot is tall apartments. The deal calls for 315 units in buildings five storeys or higher. So far there are 46, or 15%.
Why one big building counts twice
One big building would count toward the overall target and the tall-apartment target at the same time. “Really, we just need one or two of these bigger apartments on approved sites and we could kind of get a two for one here to hit both targets,” Brandon Sloan, the City’s HAF Coordinator and a co-author of the report, told council.
He said several apartment buildings were planned or being built when the City applied about two years ago, so the target looked reachable. Since then, he said, the market has needed time to fill those new buildings, and few new ones are starting.
The city’s tallest building, the 14-storey Highlands Tower at Talbot Street and First Avenue, broke ground in November 2023, before the federal counting period began, and was still advertising suites this week.
Asked about the Alma College site, Sloan said the first two apartment buildings there got their permits before the HAF period began. A third building there is approved, and it could count if it comes in within the time frame.
He said a few other sites are somewhere between expressions of interest and approvals.
What it costs
The report puts the discount at about $50,000 to $90,000 per permit, depending on the size of the building. From the projects staff already know about, the report says there could be two to four such permits. It also notes that the City’s Building Permit Stabilization Reserve is “fairly healthy.”
Staff were frank that the discount may not be enough. The report says the incentive “alone may not trigger a new permit.”
A question from council
One councillor asked whether the federal focus on taller buildings makes sense. Taller buildings cost more to build, the councillor said, and developers will want to make that money back in rent.
Sloan said the five-storey category is one of several standard targets the federal program uses with cities across Canada, and the City picked it when it applied. Another councillor praised staff for “thinking outside the box.”
What happens next
The discount runs for all of 2027. It adds to what the City already offers for new homes, such as grants through its Community Improvement Plan and a guidebook for adding a unit to an existing home. Whether it worked will show in the City’s year-end progress report, and in whether the $2.02 million arrives in 2028.
Sources: Report PD-63-26, HAF Housing Target 2027 Incentive (October 5, 2026) · Keeping Track, October 6, 2026 · City of St. Thomas, Housing Accelerator Fund Action Plan · Ian’s City Scope, November 25, 2023 (Highlands Tower groundbreaking)
By Anthony Zruna · About the LocVox Newsroom
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