Mission to Montréal, May 2007
In early May 2007, Chris Moquet and I led a party of 26 to Montréal, Canada. The trip was hosted by the Société d´habitation du Québec (SHQ) who laid on an excellent mix of lectures, study visits and a reception with timber frame manufacturers.
Canada is a country of 32 million people. Québec is the largest of its 15 provinces, covering a vast 1.7 million square kilometres (most of which is timber forest) and populated by 7m people.
Montréal is a vibrant, culturally-diverse and cosmopolitan city of 3.5 million inhabitants and is the second largest French-speaking city after Paris. It hosted the International and Universal Exposition in 1967 and the 1976 summer Olympics.
Montréal has 1.5 million dwellings, 68% of which are rented. However, the city is providing grants to first-time buyers, especially families, to encourage home ownership. The city´s long-term objectives are to supply 75,000 new units by 2014, mostly in priority areas - 30% of these will be affordable.
A range of agencies including co-operatives, housing bureaux, non-profit organisations and independent promoters are being encouraged to initiate and complete housing projects with funding typically composed of 50% SHQ subsidy, 15% community contribution and 35% guaranteed mortgage spread over 25-35 years. Rents are between 75%-95% of market rent and are often based on a percentage of income. Your rent increases as your income increases, so encouraging people to move on as they become ´better off´.
From a construction perspective, 90% of the housing stock in Québec province is timber frame using the abundant local natural resources. We visited Demetec - one of a number of timber frame manufacturers we met during the trip. It was interesting to see how close the factory was to the forest and raw material. A home shipped from Québec could be in the UK in two weeks, ready to construct.
One of the trip´s highlights was a talk by Professor Avi Friedman (pictured right), Director of the Affordable Homes Program at McGill University. Avi is a friend of the South East having spoken at our Branch conference in Brighton 2006.
His approach to designing homes and neighbourhoods that meet the demands of the occupiers and, at the same time, achieve energy efficiency was interesting. It was fascinating to see how he uses semi-basements as space for a car and as storage. We compared his designs for the majority based on meeting residents´ lifestyle aspirations to our lifetime homes approach - designed for flexibility and, some would argue, for the minority. It was also clear that the housing industry, particularly the affordable housing sector, was a lot less regulated.
A visit to Québec City provided an interesting contrast to the more modern city of Montréal. We visited the Saint-Roch neighbourhood, currently going through a revitalisation programme. Next was the artists´ quarter with its new parks, car parks with clever urban design, commercial space and individual work spaces - all designed using a range of different materials.
One thing this trip showed was the universal nature of housing and the problems everyone faces in terms of meeting the needs of homeless people, and delivering and managing new homes for those unable to buy on the open market. It also showed that there are important lessons from all over the world for us to bring to the UK, to help in delivering affordable housing solutions in the South East.
The region has continued its association with Canada - we have made a range of contacts, particularly with timber frame manufacturers, which will no doubt lead to providing high quality timber framed housing sourced from Canada being developed in the South East.
Ian Beckett