OPEN Awarded CMHC Housing Supply Challenge Funding
OPEN Technologies’ Affordable Housing Navigator is one of fourteen projects to receive implementation funding through CMHC’s Housing Supply Challenge.
As watchers of this space may recall, in May 2021 the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) awarded OPEN Technologies $200,000 to develop a proof of concept for an Affordable Housing Navigator.
The CMHC Housing Supply Challenge is a five year initiative that will deploy $300 million to remove or reduce key barriers to housing supply. This first round of the Challenge – called the Data Driven Round – started with 136 full project applications, from which 21 received proof of concept funding.
We are thrilled to announce that OPEN has now been announced as one of 14 proponents who will receive full funding to implement its concept over the coming months.
The Affordable Housing Navigator is an extension to the Net-Zero Navigator software tool, a beta-stage tool developed in collaboration with the University of Victoria’s Energy Systems & Sustainable Cities group. With this powerful modelling engine behind the scenes, the Affordable Housing Navigator will help non-profit housing developers to identify viable, sustainable design options to create comfortable, high-performance, and affordable housing.
This tool will allow non-profit housing providers and developers to quickly find the right balance between construction costs, energy performance, and climate resilience. It will provide early insights on the most (cost) effective design pathways to reach the high performance standards that are increasingly required by regulators and incentive providers. By making this type of analysis available and highly visible for decision makers, we aim to help more affordable housing projects get approved, and to ultimately meet their affordability objectives.
Our team has worked hard to develop, validate, and present our concept to the Committee in October, and we couldn’t be happier to have this opportunity to bring the Affordable Housing Navigator to life. Keep an eye out for updates on our progress in the coming months!