Housing Resources & Supports
The City continues to help enable affordable housing through a number of tools and incentives, including:
- Exemptions from municipal fees for registered not-for-profits
- Incentives and process improvements made as part of our Housing Accelerator Fund plan.
- Property tax exemptions for properties owned and occupied by a registered charitable organization or institution as defined under the Canada Income Tax Act
- Donation of City land for housing
- Prioritized processing of development applications
- Potential for Council to consider relaxed parking requirements
The City also redirects 10% of development fees into a reserve fund for community-led affordable housing projects.
To learn more, please contact the City’s Affordable Housing & Development Facilitator at affordablehousing@stjohns.ca or (709) 709-576-2325.
We also have a number of resources to support housing in our community, which are listed below.
Universal Design Resources
Building or renovating a home? Our Universal Design resources, created with the Universal Design Network of Newfoundland and Labrador provides planners, builders and homeowners with easy to implement design features that help make residential spaces more usable, accessible and future ready.
- Universal Design Guide for Accessible and Inclusive Homes (PDF)
- Universal Design Network of Newfoundland and Labrador Home Building Checklist© (PDF)
These standards are not required but are encouraged to be explored to create more homes that work for everyone regardless of age, ability, or life stage.
Your Rights & Responsibilities as a Tenant
As a tenant, you have the right to live in a safe and clean environment. Your home should be in good repair and should have adequate water, heat, light, and toilets. Your home should be safe.
The City of St. John’s has prepared this guide to help tenants to understand their rights and responsibilities. This guide is available in PDF in several languages:
Housing Needs Assessments
A Housing Needs Assessment is a research study that helps a community understand what kinds of housing are needed now — and what will be needed in the future. It looks at data such as population growth, household income, rental and home ownership costs, vacancy rates, demographics, and the supply and condition of existing housing.
Check out our Housing Needs Assessment Reports:
A Not-in-my-Backyard Toolkit
This practical toolkit provides best practices to support development proposals that offer different housing options through community engagement and education. Housing options may include, but are not limited to, affordable housing, mixed-used development, higher-density housing and other supportive housing initiatives.
Housing Design Catalogue
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's Housing Design Catalogue helps make building homes faster and more affordable.
Identified as an action in the City’s Housing Accelerator Fund Plan, the catalogue includes seven pre-designed housing options for Newfoundland and Labrador—ranging from backyard suites to fourplexes, stacked townhouses and a six-plex. Developed by architecture and engineering professionals, the designs align with local building codes and development regulations.
The plans are available to property owners at no cost and can help reduce design time and costs. They are designed to be accessible, energy efficient and climate resilient. While generally aligned with local requirements, site-specific review will still be required as part of the development and building permit process.
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