After more than eight months of waiting, Cambridge Mayor Jan Liggett and the city officials who promised they'd be able to recoup over $4.4 million in provincial funding for meeting housing targets have been rewarded for their efforts.
In Liggett's State of the City address, she told the packed crowd, "We will be getting that money," when speaking about the discrepancies between the city's and the provincial numbers on housing starts last year.
The city contested the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) tally of their 2023 housing starts that disqualified them from receiving a promised cash reward from the province's Building Faster Fund.
The city had to meet 80 per cent of its 1,393 goal or else they would be ineligible for the funding and the province said they only met 75 per cent.
According to deputy city manager Hardy Bromberg, the actual number should have been a lot higher and Cambridge joined other municipalities in calling for a revision of the numbers when housing minister Paul Calandra admitted to discrepancies in CMHC's numbers.
In data provided by Bromberg during a March interview, he stated that 253 Additional Residential Units (ARUs) and over 108 Long Term Care beds should have been accounted for in the provincial total for 2023.
"I am pleased to announce that Cambridge has received notification of being approved for funding from an initiative of the Provincial government, the Building Faster Fund," said Liggett in a press release today.
"After multiple in-person conversations and correspondence between staff, myself, CMHC, Minister Calandra and the Ministry of Housing, it was confirmed through a review of the figures we had submitted, Cambridge did indeed more than qualify for funding allocations."
CMHC stated in an email to CambridgeToday that they are sure of their practices and have no control over funding allocations from the province.
"CMHC stands by our Starts and Completions Survey (SCS) numbers and methodology, and is confident in the data produced," said David Harris, senior media relations officer for CMHC. "CMHC has engaged with Cambridge and the province to clarify our methodology and processes."
Harris added that all data is verified before monthly publication to ensure that no revisions or retroactive changes are needed afterward.
In the release, the mayor said the city was made aware of the funding approval on Oct. 25, 2024, three days before the city released and submitted the mayor's budget for 2025.
With the budget being approved on Dec. 9, there was still no mention of the funding being given back to the city or how it would affect capital projects or spending.
Information from the city was not immediately available on how the money would be spent on and how it would impact the overall budget.
However, Liggett did write in the release that the city would be utilizing the money for infrastructure projects throughout the community to "achieve our shared goals.”
When asked for clarification on how this funding will impact the upcoming budget, the mayor's office did not immediately respond.
