N.S. housing crunch must be treated as ‘once-in-a-generation challenge’: industry
Global News
Statistics Canada data from July to September 2023 found that residential construction costs were up by 8.4 per cent in Halifax compared to the same quarter last year.
Nova Scotia’s housing shortage is a generational challenge that must be met with effort similar to what was needed to rebuild after the Halifax explosion, says the head of the province’s construction association.
Expected to be lacking 41,200 homes by 2028 — and with the pressures of inflation, high interest rates and labour shortages — the province needs to take immediate action, says Duncan Williams, president and CEO of the Construction Association of Nova Scotia.
“This is a once-in-a-generation challenge. We’ve had this before, we had it after the Halifax explosion,” Williams said about the 1917 collision between two ships — one carrying explosives — that killed 2,000 people, injured thousands more and destroyed neighbourhoods.
“But most of the folks that were around then and would have helped plan through that, obviously, are not with us anymore.”
Nova Scotia’s current housing needs, he said in a recent interview, are similar to the province’s situation after the Second World War, which resulted in a period of major urban development in Halifax that extended into the 1960s.
“We’ve done this before. We just need to go back and dust off some of the history for how it got done.”
Williams says he’s looking overseas for help. Last week, he returned from a recruiting trip in London, England, where he shared job details with professionals with experience in “anywhere from drywall, to carpentry, to finish carpentry and pretty much anything in between.”
He was joined by representatives from the province and the Canadian Home Builders Association of Nova Scotia, and said they were met with a “very positive response.” It’s too early, he said, to know how many labourers might come to the province as a result of the visit, but he said the delegation had in-depth conversations about work opportunities in Nova Scotia with 300 tradespeople.
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