What could you do with (roughly) a billion dollars? Could you manage the construction of 2,000 housing units across Nunavut’s 25 communities over 10 years?
This is what NCC Development Ltd. has been tasked to do as part of Nunavut 3000, the territorial government’s ambitious $2.6-billion goal to build 3,000 units across the territory by 2030.
The lion’s share of the work — two-thirds of it, to be exact — rests squarely on the shoulders of NCC Development.
Nunavut 3000 was unveiled in 2022 and NCC Development has been given $240 million to date to go toward a total, so far, of 316 units, as part of a 10-year partnership with the Nunavut Housing Corp.
Every year, the two parties agree NCC Development will deliver a certain number of units for a certain amount of money. In 2023, it was 150 units for $105.3 million. In 2024, it was 166 units for $134.7 million. A third contract should be coming in early 2025.
While we’re not sure what the final tally will be, it’s easy to extrapolate that for NCC Development to deliver 2,000 units at the rates we are seeing so far, the total bill will top a billion dollars.
Premier P.J. Akeeagok’s government has made a big promise with Nunavut 3000, backed by an enormous amount of money — $1.5 billion of it public funding.
With almost a quarter-billion dollars in hand so far, NCC Development now has the money and the mandate to mass-produce public housing across Nunavut, and that is why Nunatsiaq News has chosen it to be our newsmaker of the year for 2024.
Granted, NCC Development is far from alone in the endeavour. Every single new housing project — be it a transitional home, supported housing unit or bed, or public housing unit or market unit — built in the territory since Nunavut 3000 counts towards the government’s 3,000-unit goal.
In a perfect world, the official Nunavut 3000 website would show up-to-date completion rates for every single community.
Instead, what we’ve seen so far is a range of statistics from the GN we’ve struggled to make sense of.
In February, Housing Minister Lorne Kusugak gave a promising update in the legislative assembly when he said: “We’ve got over 500 houses up to now and we’re doing a couple hundred more in 2024 and another couple hundred more in 2025.”
Nunatsiaq News followed up with Nunavut Housing Corp. and learned that number referred to all completed units, as well as those with active building permits — meaning a plot of land with an approved building permit counted toward the same success rate as a plot of land with a structure on it.
Nunatsiaq News reporter Arty Sarkisian took another stab at getting clear numbers in November.
He received some statistics, including a total of completed units (394) and a number that are under construction (322). The housing corporation did not provide details about which communities these units are located in.
We do know that regarding NCC Development’s status, it celebrated its first Nunavut 3000 build as part of its agreement with Nunavut Housing Corp. — an 18-plex in Iqaluit — this fall.
This may seem modest. But Clarence Synard, president and CEO of NCC Investment Group, says the company is pretty well on schedule.
The housing corporation estimated in January 2024 that construction on the first round of 150 units would be complete within 12 months.
Those units will be finished “by 2025,” Synard said in an email.
Materials are in place to start work on the corporation’s second-year contract — 166 units for $134.7 million — with construction set to start in 2025. These builds will bring Nunavut 3000 to every community, Synard said.
All eyes are on NCC Development. As the units on order and money on the table continue to pile up, so too should dozens of new homes for every community. We are excited to follow the progress.
Abbreviated from: Nunatsiaq News
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