The Future Cities Institute founded by CAIVAN (FCI) at the University of Waterloo is teaming up with BUILD NOW to redefine what affordable, attainable housing looks like in Waterloo Region, and beyond.
At the heart of this ambitious collaboration is an urgent question with national attention: how can Canada create affordable and sustainable paths to home ownership, especially for the next generation?
Through BUILD NOW, a $500-million initiative led by Habitat for Humanity Waterloo Region, the Region is aiming to build 10,000 new "missing middle" homes by 2030. These homes, made up of townhouses, walk-ups, mid-rises, and high-rises will fill the gap between single family homes and high-rise condos. Setting this initiative apart is the fact that 70 per cent of these homes are designed for ownership, using a legal model that keeps them affordable in perpetuity.
As part of the development, FCI is embedding a living lab in the first 25-acre development site near RIM Park, where more than 1,000 homes will be built. The parcel of land for this development was recently transferred from the City of Waterloo to BUILD NOW.
"What makes this transformational is not just the size, but the mix of what we are going to build," says Philip Mills, CEO of Habitat Waterloo Region and BUILD NOW. "It's ownership housing, and it's family-sized units. With a 70 per cent ownership to 30 per cent rental split and a committed focus on three- and four-bedroom units, we are prioritizing what the community needs to continue to grow and thrive."
It's here that the FCI's interdisciplinary researchers will closely track and help shape the evolution of these neighbourhoods, studying everything from health and mobility to inclusive design.
"This isn't just about housing," says Dr. Leia Minaker, director of the FCI. "It's about building new systems of opportunity as well as resilience. Our living lab will bring rigorous, real-time research into how these homes and communities change lives, for the people who will live here, and the region itself."
This partnership draws on FCI's strengths and expertise across applied research, data modelling and community engagement. Already, more than 40 researchers from all six faculties at the University of Waterloo are contributing their knowledge. Local and international partners will also support the living lab's ability to assess and amplify the economic, health, technological and societal impacts of community-led housing that prioritizes affordable homeownership.
Over the past decade, Canadian home prices have surged by more than 77 per cent, with the average house reaching more than $710,000, far outpacing income growth and widening generational inequities. This lack of access to ownership has even been framed by the RCMP as a potential national security risk.
With the rising cost of home ownership, current affordable housing initiatives in Canada prioritize rentals, often overlooking the social and economic value of home ownership. At the same time, the environmental footprint of housing remains a major challenge due to construction emissions and car-dependent community designs.
"The FCI was founded to tackle the most pressing urban challenges using data and evidence," Minaker says. "This project gives us a great chance to study a major housing initiative in real time. Our role is to track what works, what doesn't, and find ways to share those evidence-based learnings with other municipalities."
The living lab also reflects the University of Waterloo's Global Futures, bringing together academia, industry, government and the public to address the world's most pressing challenges. It's a powerful example of Waterloo's strengths in applied education, interdisciplinary learning and entrepreneurship.
BUILD NOW's first homes will break ground soon, but the impact of this partnership with the FCI will extend far beyond that. Through evidence-based models, stakeholder engagement and shared learning, the FCI-BUILD NOW collaboration aims to shift not only how we build these new homes in Waterloo Region, but how we talk about and imagine the future of housing in Canada.
As Minaker puts it, "What we're doing here is building a blueprint for transformation, backed by research and designed to scale."
