COORDINATED LAND USE REVIEW: HOUSING IN THE GROWTH PLAN

NRU
May 24, 2017
Dominik Matusik

While housing has more prominence in the amended Growth Plan, with its own section, than it did in 2006, the question is: just how substantive is it?

Dillon Consulting partner Ann Joyner told NRU that the amendments are mostly a matter of ensuring consistency between the Growth Plan and other provincial policy, particularly the Provincial Policy Statement. This is beneficial in terms of adding clarity in directing municipal policy and during OMB hearings.

“There’s not going to be any confusion anymore about how the PPS housing policy relates to the Growth Plan... The issue was always around how much land needs to be available for housing and how to connect the housing to the intensification targets and now there’s no question about it. It’s very clear that the intensification targets are going to be applied by every municipality having to do a housing strategy.

Joyner says that the inclusion of a housing section was likely spurred by recent media attention given to housing affordability issues. However, she says the new emphasis is a step in the right direction.

“By having a housing section and really emphasizing affordability and mix, I think it’s also speaking to the issues that have been so much in the press recently about making sure we have affordable mixed housing available for all people... I think this section is saying ‘yes, we are going to have intensification but we’re also going to look at how we create the housing in a way that makes it accessible for all people’.”

Former Waterloo Region community planning director Kevin Eby concurs. He told NRU that the inclusion of the housing section is an indication of the extensive attention the issue has been receiving.

“I think it’s become fairly clear that the rise in housing prices we’ve seen in the GTA are not related to the shortage of designated land.”

Eby added that two substantive polices in the housing section signal a significant shift in thinking, which he says will have a positive impact. One is the requirement that municipalities consider encouraging a variety of unit sizes in multi-residential developments. The other is allowing municipalities to use only land in built-up areas to meet intensification targets, making it possible to meet growth targets without using any greenfield lands.

Ontario Home Builders’ Association CEO Joe Vaccaro doubts that the growth plan will have much of an effect on the housing market, at least in the short term.

Vaccaro wants the province to be directly involved in dictating density around transit stations rather than only setting minimum standards for municipalities to follow. To increase housing supply and maintain affordability, he wants local barriers to development removed and provincial investment in infrastructure increased.

“It’s important that the province learn from the last round of growth planning decisions and do their job of funding, timing and improving infrastructure to support the next wave of housing options,” Vaccaro told NRU.

A municipal affairs spokesperson said in an email to NRU, that the amended Growth Plan encourages a variety of housing types in order to promote affordability.

The amended Growth Plan goes into effect on July 1.