As housing starts continue to falter, the Ontario government has unveiled an update to planning guidance it says will make it easier for towns and cities to hit housing targets they’re currently failing to reach.
Housing Minister Paul Calandra unveiled updates to the Provincial Planning Statements (PPS) on Tuesday. The PPS dictate good practice standards to planners and municipalities in the province.
The PPS changes include a push to encourage more homebuilding, new major transit lines and the conversation of underused land like shopping plazas and malls.
Calandra said the changes would streamline some of the land-use planning processes undertaken by local authorities by cutting the previous version of the same policy by 30,000 words and 100 pages.
That simplification will save 6,600 hours of administrative work, the government claimed.
“In the face of high interest rates and a challenging global economy, our government is working closely with municipalities to cut red tape and give them the tools they need to build more homes and hit their housing targets,” Calandra said at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s annual conference in Ottawa.
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“The new Provincial Planning Statement recognizes that municipalities know best where and what types of homes are needed to address the unprecedented population growth we’ve seen. It gives them the tools and flexibility they need to get it done.”
He promised the changes would contribute to a “long-term building boom” in a province where housing starts are lagging, a slowdown building industry experts fear hasn’t yet reached its lowest point.
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Just over 20 per cent of Ontario’s towns and cities with populations of more than 10,000 have hit 50 per cent of their housing targets this year, according to a provincial dashboard. Those figures include the addition of long-term care beds and basement renovations as new units.
Ontario has pledged to build 1.5 million new homes by 2031.
Developers have warned that, despite years of government legislation designed to speed up housing construction, the industry is looking at an ever-worsening slowdown.
After data from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation in June showed a year-on-year fall in both housing starts and preconstruction sales, the Building Industry and Land Development Association predicted things would get worse.
“Today’s sales are tomorrow’s housing starts — so we’re really going to see a dearth of supply in the market in two to three years when normally you’d see the construction happening for the sales that have taken place right now,” David Wilkes, BILD president and CEO, previously told Global News.
“We’ve seen historic lows in sales of new homes in the GTA… As I talk to the members that have been in the industry, this is really quite an unsettling time.”
On Tuesday, the government was bullish defending its commitment. Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma said she remained “confident” the 1.5 million homes target would be hit, while Calandra reeled off a list of previous achievements and municipal projects he said would move the needle on houses.
The government announced on the same day that applications were open for a $400-million fund to build and repair roads and bridges that will “enable” the construction of new houses.
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