The first major piece of housing legislation to emerge from Queen’s Park in the wake of the Greenbelt scandal was meant to be a bill squarely focused on meeting the province’s goal of building 1.5 million homes by 2031.
Instead, the new law — tabled by Housing Minister Paul Calandra in April — was delayed by almost a month as key policy measures that could have added thousands of new homes to Ontario’s housing market were unceremoniously scrapped.
Internal government documents and calendars obtained by Global News suggest the measures that were ultimately unveiled fell short of Calandra’s initial vision after a three-week scramble.
Changes, critics believe, that were directly made by Premier Doug Ford.
Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act
The bill was titled the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act — or Housing Supply Action Plan Five, internally — and came at a key time for the government.
As Calandra tabled the watered-down law at Queen’s Park, homebuilding was faltering across the province. Ontario’s ambitious target of building 1.5 million new homes by 2031 was slipping away and looking near impossible to achieve, with the government admitting aggressive changes were necessary.
“These measures recognize the struggles that our municipal partners have faced in building homes and are targeted at removing those obstacles,” Calandra said when the law was unveiled.
The law removed parking minimums beside transit stations, reversed some discounts the government had given to developers and allowed universities to sidestep the Planning Act in order to build accommodation quicker.
But internal documents from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing suggest the law, as tabled, left out key elements of the original vision.
Four units province-wide
Documents obtained by Global News show the government considered a variety of new measures including allowing four units — known as fourplexes – to be built across Ontario without prior municipal approval.
The policy is one that officials in the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing have long wanted to introduce.
Get breaking National news
For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.
A Progressive Conservative source told Global News that mandating four-unit developments as of right had been weighed in previous housing supply laws but had not made the final draft.
When Calandra took over the file, documents show the idea of automatically allowing fourplexes province-wide was taking shape.
One file obtained by Global News included plans to expand a provincial rule that allows homeowners or developers to build three units on a single property, first introduced in 2022.
“Build on changes in Bill 23 (HSAP 3) that allow 3 units per lot ‘as of right’ in existing residential areas, to permit up to 4 units/lot in major transit station areas and within 200m of transit corridors,” a proposed initiative in the document read.
Under the heading “status,” red text in the document suggested the initiative had been “confirmed.”
The policy was one that even opposition parties united behind — with the Greens, NDP and Liberals all calling for four units to be greenlit across the province.
Around the same time, however, the premier began bashing the policy and eventually declared that it was “off the table” for his government.
“I can assure you 1,000 per cent, you go into communities and start putting up four-storey, six-storey, eight-storey buildings right deep into communities, there’s going to be a lot of shouting and screaming,” Ford said on March 21 at an unrelated event in Richmond Hill.
“We are not going to go into communities and build four-storey or six-storey buildings beside residents.”
Ford’s vocal opposition to fourplexes drew stinging criticism, with his political opponents and quietly even some Progressive Conservatives suggesting the premier was a NIMBY — an acronym for ‘not in my backyard.’
Transit density rules
As Global News first reported, a plan to force builders to construct new projects with minimum densities near subway and light-rail stations also disappeared before the bill was tabled.
When asked why he disagreed with the policy, at a news conference on Wednesday, Premier Ford said he believed municipal leaders know their cities best, suggesting he would leave the density decisions up to location politicians.
At that same news conference, however, Ford also hinted at another transit-related housing policy measure that was stripped out of the legislation.
Calandra’s bill, sources told Global News, would have also increased density for the entire length of Ontario’s subway and Go train network, paving the way for taller buildings in more traditionally suburban areas.
“When it comes to building along transit lines, the transit-oriented communities are a little different, if you have a subway or a Go train, you should build the density,” Ford said.
“But going down a main artery, a traffic artery, you can’t in some cases build a four, six, eight-storey building — in other areas you can. That’s not up to the province to dictate to the other municipalities; no one knows their communities better than municipalities.”
Cancelled meetings and announcements
While it’s unclear who was ultimately the stumbling block that prevented key policies from being included in the legislation, the housing minister’s official calendar provides some clues.
According to Calandra’s calendar, a flurry of meetings related to the proposed law were axed during the month of March as parts of it were rewritten and redrawn.
On March 7, Calandra was scheduled to receive a two-hour walk-through of the legislation from political and non-political staff in the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. The meeting was cancelled.
Then, on March 12 and 14, news conferences about student housing and transit-related density were also ditched.
On March 18, Calandra was scheduled to meet with the Cabinet Office to brief senior civil servants about the law. The meeting, records show, was cancelled.
On March 21, the law was due to be showcased to MPPs at 1 p.m. Before that was set to take place, a cancelled invite listed as high importance reads: “HOLD: Bill Introduction.”
Final product watered down
When the bill was eventually tabled in April, even some of the measures that were announced appeared to have been watered down.
The bill scrapped parking minimums for all buildings near transit stations, meaning developers could decide if they needed to add parking spaces to their projects or if the space could instead be used for more housing.
That policy, the documents suggest, was originally intended to include new builds targeted at transit-riding students who might not find the need for a dedicated parking space.
One planning document said the government would “let residents decide, through their purchasing power, how much parking is needed” but then appeared to delete the words “near post-secondary education campuses” in the same sentence.
The government did not address questions about why the law was modified to remove some of its density policies, nor why it was delayed by almost a month.
NDP housing critic Jessica Bell told Global News she believed Premier Ford isn’t being brave enough in the housing policy his government has put forward.
“Doug Ford is lacking the courage to embrace the zoning reforms that are necessary to build the 1.5 million homes Ontarians need,” she said.
“It’s been six years and they are still refusing to take the necessary steps. Many people are very disappointed and so am I.”