Ontario updates planning rules to address home construction slowdown

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Robin MacLennan

Ontario Construction Report staff writer

Responding to a slowdown in housing starts across Ontario, the provincial government has introduced significant updates to its planning regulations to help municipalities meet their housing targets. Housing Minister Paul Calandra announced these changes to the Provincial Planning Statements (PPS) on Tuesday, aiming to streamline land-use planning and support increased homebuilding.

The new PPS, which consolidates the Provincial Policy Statement, 2020 and A Place to Grow: Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, streamlines land-use planning and cuts red tape by creating one province-wide land-use planning policy statement, which eliminates over 100 pages and 30,000 words of administrative burden and will save municipal staff an estimated 6,600 hours.

The PPS is a set of directions provided by the province that municipal planners, planning boards, and decision makers follow for land-use planning and development in Ontario. They use the PPS to make long-term plans for how their community will grow.

This helps them, as well as the province, forecast and plan for which areas will be used for new housing, which areas will be used for industry, and which areas will be reserved for farming, parks and other greenspaces so that we will have the homes and businesses we need, while ensuring the protection of agricultural lands, cultural heritage and natural areas.

Speaking at the annual conference of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), Minister Calandra outlined key changes to the PPS, such as encouraging the building of more homes in areas close to major transit stations, including subway, GO, light rail and rapid transit bus stations. The new PPS also promotes building more homes on underused low-density lands like shopping plazas and malls.

The new PPS also encourages building a broader range of housing options, including housing for students and seniors. It supports better and more integrated planning for future growth in a way that maximizes public investment by, for example, promoting better coordination between municipalities and school boards.

“In the face of high interest rates and a challenging global economy, our government is working closely with municipalities to cut red tape and provide them with the necessary tools to build more homes and achieve their housing targets,” Calandra stated at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s annual conference in Ottawa. “The new Provincial Planning Statement recognizes that municipalities are best positioned to determine where and what types of homes are needed to accommodate our unprecedented population growth. It empowers them with the flexibility needed to get the job done.”

Ontario’s commitment to constructing 1.5 million new homes by 2031 remains intact, despite a recent report from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation indicating a decline in housing starts and preconstruction sales this year.

David Wilkes, President and CEO of BILD, highlighted the potential long-term effects of the slowdown. “Today’s sales translate into tomorrow’s housing starts. We’re likely to face a significant supply shortage in two to three years due to the current decline in sales,” Wilkes told Global News. “We’re experiencing historic lows in new home sales in the Greater Toronto Area, creating an unsettling environment for industry members.”

The updated planning rules are a response to these challenges, aiming to expedite home construction and address the growing demand for housing across the province.

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