Houston touts PC plan to build 41,200 housing units by 2028  

Progressive Conservative Party Leader Tim Houston said on Wednesday his party would see more than 41,200 housing units built by 2028 and criticized the New Democratic Party’s housing plan for being “based on a typo.”  

Houston said his party’s main solution to Nova Scotia’s housing crisis is to “build more housing.” 

Houston was repeating numbers from an announcement on Oct. 2 by Housing Minister John Lohr, who mentioned in an op-ed article that 41,200 housing units would be built.  

Houston said his provincial government was “already more than halfway there, with over 26,000 new starts in progress.”  

“Today in Nova Scotia, housing starts are up by 38 per cent,” Houston said. 

According to the Nova Scotia Department of Finance, housing starts were up by 31 per cent over the first three-quarters of 2024 in comparison to the same period in 2023.  

Houston also said there will be “14,000 affordable housing starts by 2028” and that his government is “over halfway there with over 10,000 affordable homes underway.” 

The Liberals said in their platform that they would review the municipal funding formula to incentivize housing starts and build 80,000 new homes. 

The NDP has said they would build 30,000 new affordable rental homes by working with municipalities, through federal funding, levying taxes on vacant lots and cutting red tape to development.  

Houston criticized the NDP’s housing plan at the event, claiming its housing plan was “based on a typo.”   

“The NDP claims that rent in this province has gone up 70 per cent, but if you search high and low for how they came up with this number, you will come up empty-handed,” Houston said.  

The NDP did publish an announcement on Nov. 12 claiming that rent in Nova Scotia has increased 70 per cent since 2021, but as of Wednesday, the page is unavailable.  

Houston said, “if you can’t even get the problem right, why should Nova Scotians trust you with the solution?”  

Houston said the PCs have established “special planning areas to accelerate approvals” and restricted “the growth of short-term rentals to ensure more housing is available in the long-term market.”