In March, a new face became the chair of Ottawa’s housing association when industry stalwart Serge Desjardins took over the two-year post from outgoing chair, Pat Daniels, at the annual general meeting.
Desjardins, a veteran of the local homebuilding sector, stepped into his new role after years of volunteer work at the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association, including two years each as second and then first vice-chair (GOHBA recently changed titles to chair and vice-chair from president and vice-president).
High on the new chair’s list of priorities are a fresh, long-term strategy for the association, responding to the city’s draft Comprehensive Zoning By-Law and amendments to the Official Plan, and the continued challenges to the local housing sector and homebuyers posed by the country’s issues of economic uncertainty and housing affordability.
Desjardins brings both the strengths of his executive team and his many years in the homebuilding industry to his new role and its challenges.
A native of Hawkesbury, he was born into a construction family. His father was a carpenter and Desjardins, like his brothers, worked in the industry from an early age. He graduated from Algonquin College’s architectural program and has worked for the past 40 years with Minto Communities, where he is currently Director of Condominium Performance. Through Minto, Desjardins has been involved with industry-leading sustainability projects in partnership with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Natural Resources Canada and the National Research Council.
Speaking with All Things Home, Desjardins shares his goals for his term as chair and speaks to both the challenges and opportunities that await.
Edited for length and clarity.
What’s been top of mind during the early part of your term?
At GOHBA, this is the year our strategic plan gets reviewed, so we’ve been talking about growth, value for our members and all that good stuff. We’ve just opened the conversation about that. Our thinking is maybe there’s more education that should come from GOHBA; we don’t have details yet, but if you look at the trade shortage, there’s encouragement for people to join our industry and if there’s education tied to that, it could be helpful.
Before, we’ve had strategic plans that would give you maybe a three-year outlook. Now we’ll probably set our vision for five to 10 years and make sure there’s a good plan in place for succession. Nothing is set in stone, but we’re going to put a priority on that over the summer probably; it would be nice to have something in place by the fall.
The city’s Comprehensive Zoning By-Law, which regulates what can be built without having to seek specific permission, will be presented at the end of May, with public consultations to follow. What will GOHBA be commenting on?
We have a couple of GOHBA teams, our Builder Developer Council and the Urban Infill Council, and consultants working on those files, and the plan is that by the June 30 deadline (for the first round of consultations), GOHBA will issue an official position to the city regarding our concerns. My understanding is the new plan will be in place by January 2026. What I’m hearing from consultants is that sounds a bit ambitious because it’s quite an intensive review. We know enough at this point that builders and developers can start looking at their own projects with what’s been tabled to reassess what they have and how it will be impacted.
Should homebuyers and owners be concerned about the stability of the local housing industry because of the on-again/off-again United States tariffs and the economy generally?
Being a government town, we’ve been fairly sheltered and over the years haven’t seen the major declines of Toronto or Vancouver metropolitan areas. I think people in Ottawa can feel fairly safe. It’s not that we don’t want to build, but we need the sales and for people to get off the fence and just go for it.
The tariffs are creating an uncertainty that we’ve never seen before, but I think that we’ll work our way through it and won’t be as affected as some other towns that aren’t service towns like we are, that are manufacturing towns and are more affected by job losses from the tariffs.
We’re seeing the markets go up and down and people at a later stage in life have investments that are being affected daily. A lot of new homebuyers get help from the bank of Mum and Dad, but if Mum and Dad are not seeing their investments (going where they wanted them to go), that creates a lot of uncertainty and changes the game for sure.
I’d be pretty confident that if your personal situation, financial and otherwise, allows you to move on, then move on and don’t worry about it; it’s not as though tomorrow you’ll lose your investment — that’s never been Ottawa. Unfortunately, some people don’t take risks, and I think that’s what we’re seeing now.
What are your main goals and visions for your term as chair?
From a GOHBA perspective, it’s the revamped long-term vision we talked about earlier that will put us in good shape for the future and be bigger and better. Being better is always the goal.
There are hot files, including the Official Plan, which is going through amendment right now. There’s a lot of concerns there: the Provincial Planning Statement numbers (used for land use planning) are not being followed (by the city). The Ministry of Finance issues them and cities are mandated to follow those numbers when they do their Official Plans to plan for future growth. If you don’t follow those numbers, you’re at risk of falling short (in housing supply) or overshooting your target. That’s something we had flagged with the city in our early reviews of the Official Plan and now that they’re doing an amendment we’re reviving that concern. If you don’t get it right today, you can wake up down the road with a major shortage and some surveys have projected a 100,000-home shortage by (2047).
The city’s been good to listen to us; whether it turns into action is always the question. Anything having to do with the city is a process, like development charges — there’s always something. We’re hopeful that (with the new federal government) these things will have their attention to help address the affordability crisis, which is an ongoing thing.
All these files are hot files but they’re not new with me. They started before me and they’ll continue after me.
In 2022, Ottawa committed to having 150,000 new homes by 2031 as part of the Ford government’s pledge of 1.5 million new homes province-wide by 2031. So far, we’re falling short of that goal. Will we meet it?
Putting my business hat on, I’d be really happy to do that. I’m an optimist and always look on the bright side. But there are so many things in the air and so many things that could change tomorrow that we need some stability. The 150,000 homes was probably based on stats and immigration numbers that are no longer there. That goal meant a volume of building we’ve never seen before. If the (federal) government that’s elected comes through with a lot of their promises — cutting GST, trying to cut development charges, investing in technology for pre-fab houses, more labour — anything’s possible.
Whether it’s 150,000 or 100,000 or whatever the number, we’re welcoming it. We just want to build. But before you build, you need to sell, and people aren’t buying. We need stability. (The new federal government needs) to come up with the details of their plan so people will feel more confident. In my view, the second half of 2025 will be better.
Any final thoughts you’d like to add?
I look forward to the next couple of years. I’ve been a long-time volunteer at the association, and I’m pretty proud of being there and serving our members. Hopefully, I do good — that’s always our goal, to be better at what we do, right?
