A Dresden native is taking on a new to represent home builders across the province.
Dave Depencier will officially take over the reins as president of the Ontario Home Builders Association (OHBA) on Monday, during the 2023 OHBA Annual Conference at Blue Mountain Resort in Collingwood.
Depencier, who is a past president of the Chatham-Kent Home Builders Association, says he will bring a unique perspective to his new leadership role.
“It’s very satisfying to me that I can not only represent our larger cities, but I can also understand and represent the issues coming from smaller rural areas,” he said. “That’s exciting to me and I look forward to the task ahead.”
In his one-year term as OHBA president, Depencier said he hopes to tackle the biggest issues facing the industry.
“We are in a housing crisis. We need 1.5 million new homes in the next 10 years… We have to make land available quicker, we have to streamline that process when it comes to development,” said Depencier. “We also have a labour shortage. That’s a big thing. We have to build these homes and getting people interested in the skilled trades and getting people wanting to get into this industry is a big thing for me.”
Depencier said he also plans to focus on addressing illegal home building in the province.
“Not a lot of people are really informed about the importance of the process of building a home legally. I think it’s important that message gets out there and that we work hard as an industry to combat illegal building because it affects our industry in a negative way,” he said.
Depencier is the owner and president of Depencier Builders, which specializes in the design and construction of custom homes, and partner and president of DeMall Group, which focuses on land development and the designing, building and selling of spec homes.