The City of St. John’s hopes it will have another opportunity to submit a proposal to convert vacant commercial space into residential housing in the downtown area.

The federal government turned down its $5-million proposal, but the council lead on housing, Ron Ellsworth, says it was more a matter of the program just running out of money and nothing to do with the quality of the proposal.

He likes what he’s hearing from new Prime Minister Mark Carney about the need to expand housing.

He told the Tim Powers Show on VOCM that slowly, but surely, the city is expanding its housing stock.

Ellsworth says the City of St. John’s approved 2,000 housing units in 2024, and that they are getting to where they need to be on housing.