Building industry approves of housing affordability task force report

It was a long time coming and rife with potentially controversial challenges, but the report from the Housing Affordability Task force is being met with early approvals from the industry.

The report from the Housing Affordability Task Force highlights expert recommendations for additional measures to increase the supply of market housing to address the housing crisis. The Task Force is part of Ontario’s ongoing three-part consultation with industry, municipalities, and the public to help the government identify and implement real solutions to address the housing supply crisis.

Forward-thinking policies

“Everyone has a role to play in addressing the housing supply crisis,” says Steve Clark, minister of municipal affairs and housing. “As our government consults with municipalities, the public, and industry leaders and experts, we are balancing these perspectives to develop practical, forward-thinking policies that unlock and fast-track all types of housing for all types of Ontarians.”

The report’s recommendations include five main areas to quickly increase the supply of market housing, to meet a goal of adding 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years:

• Make changes to planning policies and zoning to allow for greater density and increase the variety of housing
• Reduce and streamline urban design rules to lower costs of development
• Depoliticize the approvals process to address NIMBYism and cut red tape to speed up housing
• Prevent abuse of the appeal process and address the backlog at the Ontario Land Tribunal by prioritizing cases that increase housing
• Align efforts between all levels of government to incentivize more housing

Additionally, the Task Force’s report makes other recommendations to increase housing supply over the long-term, including to digitize and modernize the approvals and planning process, grow the skilled labour workforce, and encourage new pathways to homeownership.

Generational challenge

The Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) welcomes the recommendations. “The Greater Toronto Area’s housing supply and affordability crisis is a generational challenge with broad-ranging social and economic impacts,” says Jason Sheldon, BILD’s chair and executive vice-president, land development at Remington Group.

The Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON) is even more direct in its comments on the recommendations, calling the “sweeping reforms” exactly the type of bold and decisive action needed to get shovels in the ground quicker and boost the number of homes being built in Ontario.

“The task force has come up with an ambitious blueprint for building 1.5 million new homes in the next decade by revolutionizing how municipalities approve housing projects,” says RESCON President Richard Lyall. “This is the progressive and out-of-the-box type thinking that we need to boost supply and address the soaring cost of housing in Ontario.

Band-aid policies

The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) also gave the report the thumbs up. The GTA remains the primary destination for new immigrants, and is at the centre of the Canadian economy, TRREB President Kevin Crigger says. “For far too long, governments have focused on short-term band-aid policies to artificially suppress demand. Current market activity highlights decisively that these policies do not work, and unless governments work together to cut red tape, streamline the approval processes, and incentivize mid-density housing, ongoing housing affordability challenges will escalate.”