New Homes
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Municipal infrastructure is everyoneâs business
IT appears as though the recent Big City Mayors’ Caucus of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting produced positive results as it relates to infrastructure funding. We already knew of the federal government’s commitment of an additional $60 billion over the next decade, bringing promised funding up to $125 billion.
However, we also know there has been friction between the federal government and cities as it relates to receiving their perceived fair share, strings attached to funding, shovelready versus shovel-worthy and a fair funding formula for big-ticket projects. The argument has been made municipalities are burdened with 60 per cent of the infrastructure load but only receive 10 per cent of the tax base. That makes the one-third federal, one-third provincial and one-third municipal funding formula almost impossible for cities to participate.
Now that we’re not in election mode municipally or federally, the shiny new projects don’t have to garner all of the new funding headlines. There will be flexibility for what is being called a "deferred maintenance backlog"; items such as fixing old buses, sewers and social housing. We have plenty of need for all three in Winnipeg. They are also ‘shovel-ready’. That is, they have been identified, cost estimates are done, and we can go about fixing them immediately upon confirmation of funding.
Larger and newer projects will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Again, Winnipeg’s city council is ahead of the game on this. They’ve made their list, ranked projects in order of priority and are ready to move ahead.
The next step will be to get funding confirmation on a longer-term basis.
The construction industry cannot wait for the spring passing of three levels of budgets to plan a season that would begin immediately afterwards.
In order to maximize efficiency and minimize costs, this planning and allocation needs to be completed well in advance of the typical outdoor construction season. People’s jobs depend upon it.
Yes, it’s about jobs, but it’s also about quality of life in the big cities. It’s about operating efficiently so that big cities can continue to be the economic engines they were designed to be.
It’s also about realizing everyone has a share in funding infrastructure.
Roads, bridges, water and other necessary core components are used by everyone and are the responsibility of everyone. You can’t simply target one segment of the population or one neighbourhood and expect them to shoulder the burden of behalf of all of us.
Mike Moore is president of the Manitoba Home Builders Association.
New Homes
Next generation ready to join the workforce
A few weeks ago, we looked at the pending skilled labour shortfall in the construction industry. The Construction Looking Forward report projected the need for 3,900 new entrants into the residential construction industry in a wide variety of positions.
Manitoba is a Canadian leader in immigration from other countries. We have been fortunate to be able to attract some extremely talented people with skill sets critical to the residential construction industry. However, even though Manitoba is the easiest place in the world to feel at home while away from home, this cannot be counted upon to be the sole solution to our anticipated skilled labour shortfall.
There is an outstanding talent pool right here, right now, that hasn't been fully tapped. There are potentially thousands of young people who are unsure what they want to do with their lives.
They may be preparing for high school, college, university or the job market and are considering their options.
A career in residential construction should be considered as one of those options. However, a better job needs to be done to inform and prepare young people for this career choice.
Our high schools can be a tremendous training ground for immediate careers. Tec Voc, R.B. Russell, Kildonan East, Sturgeon Heights and many other high schools outside of Winnipeg have extremely good technical and vocational programs that help prepare our young people for careers.
However, industry and government need to do more to assist these students.
We need to introduce essential skills training; we need to assist with curriculum development to ensure relevancy; we need to help with the provision of equipment and supplies; we need to assist in the classroom where possible; we need to provide learning opportunities in the field; we need to market our product better; we need to assist in career counseling by promoting our wide array of career opportunities; we need to do a better job of informing parents about careers in construction.
Our colleges have really stepped up in recent years. Long known as outstanding preparatory institutions for guaranteed careers, the Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology, Red River College and Assiniboine Community College are training and educating tomorrow's worker today. These are the perfect locations for high school graduates to hone their skills for the workforce and make them ideal candidates for the workforce.
So, how are we going to find the workers that are needed for the construction industry for the next 10 years? Most of them are already living in Manitoba. We just have to identify, recruit and provide proper training for them.
Our young people are our most valuable commodity. Let's maximize our input to get the best results.
Anything less would be a disservice.
Mike Moore is president of the Manitoba Home Builders'Association.
New Homes
CMHC housing market assessment misses mark
Last week, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) released its third quarter housing market assessment.
The purpose of this document reveals its first basic problem. The only purpose of this report is to highlight evidence of problematic conditions.
For each of the 15 cities reviewed, there is a grand total of one paragraph dedicated to their entire housing industry.
According to this report, there is only one market in Canada (Hamilton) where demand significantly outpaces supply. Hamilton? Perhaps Torontonians are wanting to move south.
Winnipeg is now considered less problematic than it has been for the past two quarters. The accusations of over-valuation have subsided. This is a problematic category to me. The market determines over-valuation, not an analyst. If consumers consider the prices to be too high, they don't buy. If they offer less on a resale home and it sells, then that was the right price.
The Winnipeg market was labelled as a cautionary yellow again for moderate overbuilding. However, when I questioned CMHC representatives on this grade, it turns out there isn't overbuilding in single family homes. There isn't overbuilding in condominiums, row houses or townhouses. The overbuilding flagged by the analysts was in apartments. The entire Winnipeg housing industry was given a cautionary grade because there were 996 more apartments built in 2015 than 2014 -- mostly in response to the fact Winnipeg had the lowest apartment vacancy rate in Canada three years ago.
Housing market assessments are interesting, but they are not something that should be dominating the status of the housing market. The industry is far too important to be summarized in one paragraph and only four factors.
Mike Moore is president of the Manitoba Home Builders' Association.
