The federal government has listed 56 properties available for residential housing redevelopment.

Ottawa has placed the properties in the new Canada Public Land Bank with other assets to be added regularly in coming month. The properties include former military bases, Canada Post sites and federal office buildings located across Canada.

Instead of selling the sites, the government will lease them in most cases to housing investors and developers on a long-term basis. Many of the projects are expected to be multi-residential developments.

The 56 sites comprise 305 hectares of land, equal to 2,000 hockey rinks or about 400 Canadian Football League-sized fields.

Five of the properties are now intended for leasing and ready for builders to submit their plans, said Public Services and Procurement Canada in a news release.

Public Services and Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the program is designed to unlock public lands for housing at a pace not seen in generations.

“We need to build more homes in Canada, and one of the largest costs in building is land,” said Sean Fraser, the minister of housing, infrastructure and communities. “By building on public lands, we can make it easier to build, and by leasing those same properties, we can make sure the homes built stay affordable for the long term.”

The program is being co-ordinated by the Canada Lands Company as part of the government’s Public Lands for Homes Plan. Canada Lands and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation have issued a call for proposals from housing providers in Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa and Montreal to access some of the properties in the new land bank.

“Under the new plan, we will partner with the housing sector and communities to build homes on every site suitable for housing across the federal portfolio,” says the government’s news release.

The government has also pledged to accelerate its real property disposal process to match the speed of builders and the urgency of getting affordable homes built.

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