The Ford government’s housing bill could pass this week. Municipal leaders are urging the province to slow down

Thestar.com
June 4, 2019
Jennifer Pagliaro

Premier Doug Ford’s omnibus housing bill will hurt not help those in need of more affordable shelter, advocates for those experiencing homelessness, renters and academics said Monday.

As the provincial government pushed Bill 108, the More Homes, More Choice Act, to a final vote at in the legislature expected later this week, municipal leaders continued to argue the bill would not do what Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark claimed it would as they urged the government to provide more time to consider the widespread impact.

“We’ve heard from no expert that has suggested that merely promoting the supply of luxury condos and expensive houses and building them over green spaces, endangering the habitat of endangered wildlife and so on contributes at all to making our city more affordable,” said Councillor Josh Matlow (Ward 12 Toronto--St. Paul’s) at a city hall news conference Monday.

“The government is rushing ahead with Bill 108, which will have a negative impact (on) how municipalities are able to effectively manage their land use planning to actually focus on affordability, to actually focus on the quality of life of our neighbourhoods.”

Introduced at Queen’s Park on May 2, Bill 108 proposes sweeping changes to the planning process, including the return of the controversial Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) rules and limiting what municipalities can collect in community benefits from developers. Scientists have also publicly expressed worries it will gut protections for endangered species.

After just two days at the committee stage of a process that sees bills become law, the bill is now headed back to the legislature as early as Wednesday. The expectation is that the bill will be passed before the legislature breaks for the summer on Friday. Clark’s spokesperson, Julie O’Driscoll, refused to confirm that Monday afternoon, saying it would be “premature” to comment while the bill was still at committee.

The government says the bill would serve to cut “red tape” around the development process to increase the supply of housing and also affordability. Critics say there’s no evidence of that while the real effect could be permanently damaging.

“It has no mechanisms to ensure that development costs savings are actually passed on to end users,” Ryerson University’s Cherise Burda, who runs the City Building Institute, said of the bill. “The simplistic argument that more supply equals affordability does not hold water.”

Burda said the bill would encourage denser and taller development rather than spreading density to other parts of the city and promoting the growth of what is known in planning policy as “missing middle” housing.

“At the same time it will reduce the fees that developers pay to the city to provide the necessary infrastructure to support growing neighbourhoods, like the pipes, the transit, parks, services that build communities.”

That will leave cities like Toronto -- already struggling to balance an annual budget -- burdened with making up the shortfall, she said.

Critics noted that, according to Toronto’s planning division, there were 226,000 units approved in the city between 2002 and 2017. Another 144,000 units have been approved but not yet built. And a further 167,309 units are currently under review.

Burda said many other complicated factors contribute to housing affordability that are not addressed by Bill 108.

Rafi Aaron, an advocate for those living on Toronto’s streets, called Bill 108 a “death blow to the future and dreams” of vulnerable residents stuck in the midst of an ongoing affordability crisis, noting the bill would limit the new--found powers of inclusionary zoning that would have allowed cities to more broadly ensure a percentage of affordable units in new builds.

Those new builds are now no longer subject to rent control -- also changes brought in under the Ford government.

On Monday, the bill was analyzed by MPPs on the standing committee on justice policy. The government bill is likely to pass with support from the majority PC caucus.

Liberal MPP Nathalie Des Rosiers, who sits on the committee, said Monday afternoon the process has been “quite discouraging” thus far.

Last Friday, the committee heard from select stakeholders before being left with just an hour to submit possible amendments to the legislation based on what they heard. Few opposition amendments were accepted by the government Monday afternoon, Des Rosiers’ office later told the Star.

“It really feels like its almost a farce to have a process that does not allow the parliament and the house to have input in this bill,” Des Rosiers said, adding it was also “disrespectful” to those who took the time to come and speak to them.

The Ottawa--Vanier MPP agreed the PC government should take a step back.

“I think that certainly there’s no reason why they should not spend the summer engaging with the municipal actors for them to understand better the scope of change that is at play here and listen to their concerns,” she said.

Clark indicated in an open letter Friday his government is not willing to slow down the legislative process already underway, but promised to consult with municipalities on forthcoming regulations.

“Our government will help build the right types of homes in the right places, to make housing more affordable for everyone in Ontario,” the letter says.

Though Clark has said cities and others were consulted, the consultation did not include specifics of the bill -- only framing possible changes around broad questions and made little to no mention of changes to laws affecting heritage and environmental protections.

Leader Andrea Horwath said in the legislature Monday that the PC government was “once again running roughshod over Ontario’s municipalities” with Bill 108.

“From Durham to Brampton to South Frontenac to Aurora, municipalities are passing resolutions asking the government not to move forward with legislation that will revert back to the old OMB model,” she said.

Horwath also said Monday her party will be proposing a private member’s bill -- which is unlikely to be passed by Ford’s majority -- to prevent Ford or any future government from “meddling” in local governance as the PCs did last summer by chopping Toronto city council almost in half during the municipal election campaign and scrapping regional chair elections in Peel, York, Muskoka and Niagara.