Housing crisis | Federal buildings transformed into housing

On Wednesday, three buildings in Quebec City, unused by the federal government, were added to the list of properties ready to be converted into housing. In the province, there are now eight.

The buildings located at 94, 104 and 112 Dalhousie Street, which housed the Canadian Coast Guard in the Old Port of Quebec, were added to the Public Lands Bank of Canada this week.

“Thus, the number of federal properties that have been designated as suitable for housing now stands at 70. This list will continue to grow in the months to come,” confirmed the federal government in a press release, released Wednesday .

Of all the locations designated by the federal government and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), eight are located in Quebec. First, in Montreal and Gatineau, which each have two buildings with conversion potential. Then, three other buildings are located in the cities of Lac-Mégantic, Rimouski and Sept-Îles.

The Canadian Public Land Bank was launched in August 2024, as part of the federal plan to address the housing crisis. The new tool identifies, using an interactive online map, government properties that offer high potential for conversion into housing¹.

The surface area of ​​the 70 properties totals 385 hectares, the equivalent of approximately 2,500 hockey rinks.

Where possible, the government will convert them through a long-term lease, explained the Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada, Jean-Yves Duclos, in the press release. A one-time sale would be less favorable to affordable housing, and would not ensure that public lands remain public, he said.

The Plan to build housing on public land of the Canadian government has set itself the objective of creating 250,000 new housing units by 2031.

The former NFB building

The proposals submitted for the development of the building located at 125, rue Houde, in Montreal, are currently being evaluated. This is one of the buildings that housed the National Film Board (NFB), before its move to the Quartier des spectacles in 2019.

On August 28, CMHC announced that the building would be “converted into a mixed-use complex” and would have “at least 110 housing units.”

The Canada Lands Company, which owns the property, requires that at least 30 per cent of the units have rents below 80 per cent of the median market rent over the life of the lease. The median market rent, predicted by the online description, is $777 for a studio, $950 for a one-bedroom apartment, and $1,015 for a two-bedroom unit.

The ground floor of the property will be rented to a community organization and will make way for a community center for area residents. A new Réseau express métropolitain (REM) station should also see the light of day less than 500 meters from the site in 2025. “This future public transport hub is partly behind the transformation of the site,” specifies CMHC .

Thus, the redevelopment of the vast complex in the Saint-Laurent borough will include, in total, 600 to 700 apartments in mid-rise towers. This conversion will provide affordable housing. The current zoning will have to be modified since it applies to a movie studio.

According to the interactive map from the Public Lands Bank of Canada, the former monastery of the Congregation of the Servants of Jesus-Marie, in Gatineau, is currently receiving offers. The other locations are still at the call for proposals stage.

More detailed information on the number of housing units that these buildings will accommodate will soon be disclosed, assures the press release from the Canadian government.

1. Consult the Government of Canada interactive map