Ontario bill aims to accelerate stalled housing developments

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TORONTO — Ontario is proposing to speed up student housing and allow municipalities to adopt “use it or lose it” policies to force stalled developments to move under a new bill aimed at cutting red tape from the housing system. .

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Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra today introduced an omnibus bill that addresses rules and regulations across several ministries, but the biggest sections are related to housing and will try to help see 1.5 million homes built over 10 years.

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Ontario's spring budget shows new home construction is picking up in Ontario, with 88,000 homes planned for 2024, but still far from the level needed to meet the government's target by 2031.

Calandra previously said Ontario needs to build at least 125,000 homes this year, and at least 175,000 a year soon.

The new bill would eliminate minimum parking requirements for developments near major transit stations, limit third-party appeals to the Ontario Land Tribunal and allow municipalities to more quickly increase construction fees developers pay for market-rate housing. t is not classified as affordable housing.

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Calandra says the measures in the bill highlight the challenges municipalities face in the housing process and aim to remove those barriers.

“We will not micromanage or impose a one-size-fits-all approach across the province,” he wrote in a statement. “Municipalities know their communities best – they know what it means to build a house.”

Calandra and Premier Doug Ford have echoed that sentiment often in recent days, as fourplexes have become a flashpoint in Ontario politics and housing policy.

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Opposition parties, as well as housing advocates, want to see the province create a rule that would automatically allow up to four housing units anywhere in the province, but Ford said he would not support that, even if the federal government did. ties $5 billion in new funding to provinces to implement similar policies.

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Calandra's new bill seeks to remove barriers to building accessory housing such as garden and road suites, such as limits on the number of bedrooms on a single lot. It also exempts standardized housing projects from certain planning regulations to speed approvals, allowing Ontario to partner with British Columbia and the federal government on a catalog of pre-approved projects.

The legislation also includes a number of minor regulatory changes, as well as proposing to allow municipalities to provide certain business incentives to help attract investment, and the government's decision to dissolve the Peel Region.

The bill would amend the law that would break up the upper-level zone and instead direct the transition council, which was originally responsible for overseeing the municipal separation, to consider how to make the Peel region more efficient.

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