Strategies for Improving Access to Safe, Clean, Affordable Housing Beyond COVID-19
A Case Study of Lachine
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This project examines housing affordability dynamics in Lachine, a Montreal borough historically characterized by relatively affordable and adequate housing. Since 2001, housing costs there have risen from below the Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) average to matching or exceeding it. Using Lachine as a case study, the project assesses how community renewal strategies can expand access to safe, clean, and affordable housing without exacerbating displacement pressures.
Jump to Research OutputsHow can community renewal strategies in Lachine improve access to safe, clean, and affordable housing while limiting displacement?
Lachine offers a valuable comparative case study within BSH’s three CMAs due to its relatively peripheral location, away from major regional amenities, and its diverse mix of housing types and tenures. Although it has remained largely under the radar of intense up-filtering, it is increasingly experiencing affordability pressures.
Project Lead(s):
Home Organization:
McGill University
Community Partner:
Table habitation de Lachine
Funding Stream:
Community-Focused Project
Project Status:
Ongoing
Background
Lachine is generally regarded as an area with a diverse and relatively affordable housing stock, but rising costs have created growing affordability pressures and forms of displacement. At the same time, the area is undergoing significant change through a municipal écoquartier initiative on disused industrial lands under the Programme particulier d’urbanisme (PPU), which will introduce hundreds of new dwellings and infrastructure improvements. The project aims to identify how community renewal can improve access to safe, clean, and affordable housing as this redevelopment unfolds.
Methodology
This project explores policy strategies that can be applied in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver through three core work packages. First, it assesses the overall condition (salubrité) of housing in selected Lachine subsectors that continue to experience substandard conditions. Second, it develops an inventory of disused, abandoned, for-sale, and dilapidated buildings that could be acquired by a local non-profit housing organization. Third, it identifies responsive land practices that could be piloted through the PPU and scaled across Lachine, informed by interviews with key stakeholders on feasibility and scalability.
Results
Findings from this project are currently in development. Results will be published upon completion of the research.
Research Outputs
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