Ontario publishes Housing Affordability Task Force Report

Ontario has published the report from the Housing Affordability Task Force.

It highlights expert recommendations for additional measures to increase the supply of market housing to address the housing crisis.

“Everyone has a role to play in addressing the housing supply crisis. 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,” said Steve Clark, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing in a statement. “I’d like to thank Jake Lawrence and the entire Task Force for their hard work, including conducting extensive consultations with other stakeholders, to develop their report.”

The Task Force report’s recommendations include five main areas to 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.

The province says the report makes other recommendations to increase housing supply over the long-term. This includes digitizing and modernizing the approvals and planning processes, growing the skilled labour workforce and encouraging new pathways to home ownership.

“When Premier Ford and Minister Clark created the Task Force our instructions were clear: to deliver concrete, actionable recommendations to address the housing affordability crisis by getting more homes built,” said Jake Lawrence, Chair of the Housing Affordability Task Force and Chief Executive Officer and Group Head, Global Banking and Markets at Scotiabank in a statement. “Lengthy reviews, bureaucratic red tape, and costly appeals are making it too difficult to build new housing. We propose an ambitious and achievable goal to build 1.5 million homes over the next ten years and the steps needed to get there.”