Cornwall Housing Needs Assessment

Cornwall Housing Needs Assessment

Planning & Policy

City of Cornwall

Cornwall, Ontario

2025

Cornwall is growing and changing—and its housing supply needs to evolve with it. As affordability pressures increase and household demographics shift, the City needed a clearer understanding of what kinds of housing are needed today, what will be required in the future, and where the most significant gaps exist.

Re:Public worked with the City of Cornwall to prepare a comprehensive Housing Needs Assessment, establishing an evidence-based picture of housing demand, affordability, demographic change, and future growth. The work was completed to meet federal Housing Accelerator Fund requirements while providing the City with a practical foundation for longer-term housing, land use, and infrastructure decisions.

Combining extensive data analysis with local knowledge and community input, the assessment moves beyond a simple unit count. It identifies who needs housing, what they can afford, what types of homes are missing, and how those needs could change as Cornwall grows.

Understanding Cornwall’s Housing Needs

The Housing Needs Assessment used a mixed-methods approach to understand both the numbers behind Cornwall’s housing challenges and the experiences of the people navigating them.

The analysis brought together data from Statistics Canada, CMHC, municipal sources, and the Housing Assessment Resource Tool (HART), alongside input gathered through a public survey and targeted workshops with service providers, housing stakeholders, and members of the development community.

Together, these inputs provided a detailed picture of:

Demographic and household change
Housing supply, tenure, and condition
Rental and ownership affordability
Core housing need
Needs among priority populations
Development activity and land supply
Population and household growth
Future housing demand by income, household size, and unit type

A Growing Need for Smaller Homes

One of the clearest findings is a growing mismatch between Cornwall’s existing housing stock and the households that will need homes in the future.

Smaller households are becoming increasingly important to the city’s housing market. By 2036, one- and two-person households are projected to account for nearly three-quarters of Cornwall households, creating particularly strong demand for smaller housing options.

The assessment identifies a persistent shortage of bachelor and one-bedroom units, while some larger unit types are comparatively well supplied. Meeting future need will require a greater diversity of compact, attainable housing, including options suited to seniors, individuals living alone, and lower-income households.

Grounded in Local Experience

Public consultation and targeted stakeholder workshops helped test the quantitative findings against local experience. Participants provided insight into barriers to finding appropriate and affordable housing, gaps in the existing supply, development challenges, and priorities for future action.

By integrating these perspectives directly into the assessment, the final report reflects both measurable housing trends and the realities facing Cornwall residents, housing providers, service organizations, and builders.