Ontario Home Builders' Association - industry priorities

NRU
Oct. 11, 2017
By Domink Matusik

The newly appointed Ontario Home Builders' Association president says the industry must work to address provincial policy changes, and ensure its 29 local associations actively engage across the province.

September 26, OHBA appointed Pierre Dufresne as president for a two-year term. Land development vice president at Ottawa-based Tartan Homes, Dufresne has served on OHBA's executive committee since 2014. He says that OHBA's priority is to figure out how to respond to recent and upcoming legislative changes being enacted by the provincial government.

"The top priorities are addressing all of the legislative changes that are being proposed as brought forward by our provincial government, and how all of those reforms are going to directly affect our industry," Dufresne says. Whether it be the home warranty Tarion reform, OMB reform, proposals to permit municipalities to impose inclusionary zoning measures in our developments. They're all part of bigger picture policy initiatives that the government is bringing forth to deal with climate change, to deal with wealth distribution, to deal with all these other matters. But parts of each of these policy initiatives could have a very strong and potentially severe impact to our industry and our ability to provide the consumer with the product that we can."

Dufresne says that criticism of the OMB as being prodeveloper is misguided. Currently, he says, the OMB makes decisions based on local and provincial policy. However, with the proposed provincial reforms, there is a degree of uncertainty about what criteria the new tribunal will use to make decisions and whether these will become politicized.

"There may be more deference now to a council decision than there was in the past," he says. "And we're on kind of shaky ground about what the OMB is going to rely on to make a correct decision. So we may not end up with the best planning decisions that will fulfil the objectives of the Provincial Policy Statement and official plans. They may be political decisions or decisions that are politicized to make community groups happy or to protect local councillors from any type of criticism."

As an Ottawa-based developer, Dufresne wants to combat the perception that OHBA is all about Toronto.

"[OHBA] is a province-wide organization," he says. "And I want to make sure that it's as strong in Ottawa and as strong in Cornwall, and as strong in Sudbury, and everywhere else in the province as it is in Toronto... Every local needs to feel that their issues are as important as everybody else's issues."

Dufresne says that, since his involvement on the executive committee, OHBA has been working to strengthen its local associations and ensure the industry is strongly represented across the province.

"The more enthusiasm and the more participation we have, the more opportunity we gain to try and create the best business environment to help companies be productive, and also the best environments for our clients and customers to be able to purchase housing."