TORONTO — Ontario is considering revising its tallies of how many homes are built in cities and towns across the province, after some complained that undercounting has cost them millions in provincial funding.
The town of Ajax says CMHC missed counting 324 units in an apartment building. While the CMHC acknowledged the error and said it would include the units in the 2024 counts, it still means the town just missed out on qualifying for $4 million through the building fund, a spokesperson said."We work with all municipalities on an ongoing basis to produce the most accurate and objective data based on our methodology," the federal Crown corporation wrote.
"We should be able to better track not only across municipalities, not only affordable housing, but as we’ve heard through some of the criticism of the BFF funding and how CMHC tracks shovels in the ground, I think we also have to do a better job of how do we accumulate that data from our municipal partners," he said.
The housing starts data discrepancies are just the latest concern from municipalities with the province's system for tracking and rewarding housing progress. They say housing starts shouldn't be the metric at all, no matter how the CMHC counts them.