St. John’s Mayor Danny Breen doesn’t like what he sees in the federal Conservative Party’s housing policy, calling it “counterintuitive.”

The framework set targets for the number of new houses a city must build every year, or else risk cuts to their infrastructure grants.

Municipalities that go over the 15 per cent target would get a financial bonus toward building more homes.

Ultimately, over the next five years, cities and towns would have to more than double the number of homes currently being built, something Mayor Breen says ignores financial realities.

“In other words, if you don’t reach certain targets then you don’t get additional funding. It’s very counterintuitive. We need the infrastructure to get the houses built. So you could be cutting off your nose despite your face, as they say, by the time you do that sort of thing. So I would really ask the Conservative Party to reconsider that as a method of allocating funding.”

It’s estimated about $100,000 of infrastructure is required for every new house built.

Breen says the city can’t afford that alone, or even in concert with the province, insisting the Conservatives must reconsider that formula.

“We’re gonna need all hands on board if we’re going to take care of this, so I think the federal parties really need to involve municipalities and the provincial government when they’re making these decisions and not put themselves into policies that contradict policies and initiatives of other levels of government.”