Achi news desk-
Three Chambers of Commerce in New Brunswick recently sent a letter to Premier Blaine Higgs asking him to help the province build more housing units to keep up with growing demand.
Morgan Peters, CEO of the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce, said he hears housing concerns from members on a daily basis.
“In our communities, and really across the country, housing availability is secretly not a big issue,” Peters told CTV News Atlantic’s Todd Batti in an interview Wednesday. “Our hope was that some steps would be taken in the provincial budget. From a competitiveness perspective, we are concerned that we are lagging behind compared to other states.
“Overall our message is for the government to create those conditions to encourage more development in New Brunswick.”
Peters said his Chamber of Commerce had made a number of suggestions to the chief officer regarding housing over the past year. He noted how the federal government suspended the GST on new rental units, urging the governments of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador to follow suit.
“When you talk to New Brunswick their response is concern about a hit to the bottom line for provincial revenues in the world of $170-to-$190 million,” Peters said. “That’s a large amount of money, but that essentially means that the burden is being placed on developers and developments in New Brunswick instead of the government.
“Developers have a choice of where to put their money. If they’re looking at where to put their rental units, New Brunswick becomes less attractive.”
Peters said the province has seen significant growth in the past five years and believes an increase in households could help that trend continue to track upwards.
“We’re really scared that we’re going to backslide on that and not keep the gains we’ve made,” he said.
Peters said while housing remains a national issue, it’s also one that has real consequences in New Brunswick’s backyard.
“It affects every other issue we deal with,” he said. “There is nothing new in the letter. We hope that coming together with a collective voice will amplify that message.”
