Ottawa turning to ‘history books’ with war-time housing plan revival

globalnews.ca:

housing plan to ignite the pace of home construction in Canada.Housing Minister Sean Fraser on Tuesday confirmed Global News’ report from Monday that the minority Liberals were taking the nearly 80-year-old program off the shelf and revamping it.The program, which was run by what was at the time known as Wartime Housing Ltd., provided standardized housing blueprints to builders.“In many instances, these homes were being built in a period of about 36 hours, and we intend to take these lessons from our history books and bring them into the 21st century,” Fraser told reporters in Ottawa.“We are going to be moving forward with a catalogue of pre-approved designs at the federal level.”Fraser added the government will begin consultations on the matter in January, with the goal to have them available for developers next fall.The program from Wartime Housing and its successor, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

(CMHC), saw hundreds of thousands of homes built from thousands of pre-approved plans between the 1940s and the late 1970s.Many of these homes, dubbed “strawberry box” houses or “victory homes,” were built for returning Second World War veterans, and are still standing in many Canadian neighbourhoods.Fraser’s vision for the modern revamp will include various styles of homes.“I will be looking for pre-approved designs for multiplexes, for mid-rise buildings, for student housing, for seniors, residences and other small-to-medium scale residential properties,” he said.“This will include garden suites and laneway homes and different kinds of houses that will solve the challenges that our communities are facing today.”Homebuilders, of course, can continue to build projects that won’t be included in the pre-approved designs,