
The Ontario Government has just announced its housing program. The principal strategies? Building more housing and selling government assets. There is also a sweeping announcement about possible changes to regulations affecting development, rent controls and appeal processes. See Ontario: More Homes, More Choice
Is this good news?
The announcement comes just after a parcel of provincially owned prime real estate in downtown Toronto was sold to a private developer. Downtown land at below market value. It should not come as a surprise that the developers are pleased. See Toronto Star: “More Homes, More Choice” Ontario Reveals Details Of New Housing Supply Action Plan
Others are less impressed. In the same article Greg Suttor, a senior researcher at the Wellesley Institute, points out that the provincial program focusses mainly on reducing red tape, while remaining silent on other factors that affect housing costs.
Greg’s colleague Scott Leon assesses the changes proposed to the legislation that protects tenants and finds them wanting. See the Wellesley Institute: Cutting Tenant Protections Will Harm Our Health
Daniel Del Gobbo, a former legal counsel for Toronto Community Housing, who is teaching at Osgoode Law School, notes that the provincial program is out of alignment with efforts at the federal and local level. He comments specifically on the lack of funding to the Canada’s largest social housing provider, Toronto Community Housing. See The Conversation: The Ontario Government’s Shameful Snub Of Affordable Housing
And most recently, Toronto City Council assesses that the plan will potentially limit the City’s capacity to develop affordable housing, while at the same time tinkering with regulations that have little overall impact on the amount of housing that gets built. See CBC: Council Votes To Oppose Ford’s New Housing Plan Amid Concerns About Affordability, Reduced Revenue
How can the Ontario Housing Plan be of use to other jurisdictions concerned about affordable housing?
Does this plan actually address affordable housing? Although Ontario uses the term “more affordable” throughout the plan, it is almost always used in the most general sense to apply to all housing, not to particular segments of the housing market which are in crisis (e.g. social housing1 or missing middle housing2).
But the Ontario Government’s Housing Plan does suggest litmus tests to apply to any such housing plan, affordable or not, including those conjured up in other jurisdictions.
How much of the “plan” is a promise of practical solutions?
In the case of the Ontario plan, the significant practical promise is to sell off surplus government land. Notably, the plan does not propose to restrict the use of the land to segments of the housing market in crisis. Its recent selloff of public land to a private developer does include a symbolic commitment to a deliver a handful of affordable units. Otherwise it enriches a developer largely adding to Ontario’s housing boom, which is priced far out of reach to segments of the population suffering most in an affordable housing crisis.
How much of the “plan” is premise about possibilities?
The general premise of the Ontario plan is that newly expressed provincial thinking in the plan will cause developers to “build more housing, faster.” In reality, without incentives to focus on one particular corner of the housing market, the housing industry will build what it wants to where it wants to. Will it build more housing? That’s pure premise. Could be less.
And why will “more housing” help make it “more affordable?” That’s another premise, based on the theory of supply and demand, that more housing supply will drive down prices. This in turn is based on the premise that the housing industry wants to build surplus housing to drive down prices. It doesn’t. And studies in other cities are starting to show that the effect on the housing market, if it exists at all, takes years and years to have any impact.
And why might there be more housing built anyway? The Housing plan trots out another premise: that red tape might be cut enough that the housing industry (if it chooses to) could build more housing, more quickly.
Meanwhile, Ontario citizens are waiting for red tape to be added to housing regulations that will protect individuals from predation by landlords and developers. Ontario is still waiting for the red tape that will prevent deaths like this one — Landlords Charged With Negligence In Fatal Scarborough House Fire. And many in Ontario are still waiting for the red tape that better protects the condo-buyers who lose investment money when projects are suddenly cancelled due to the excessive leeway accorded developers — Government Refuses To Protect Consumers: Lawyer.
No doubt in the fullness of time, politicians who are wet behind the ears will learn that regulations are not just collections of deadwood to be trimmed away by the paragraph in an annual spring cleaning.
Of course, Ontario might be in the act of developing practical funding initiatives to restrict provincial land selloffs to, say, sorely needed and affordable long term care homes. And perhaps the province is thinking about providing practical funding to municipalities to review and prune the tangled bush of housing regulations.
Alas, few of these practical solutions are currently in evidence. As we suggested in the headline, so far its all mostly happy-clappy, as if the we ♥️ heart more housing” provincial spirit will be so inspirational that the affordable housing crisis will somehow fix itself.
In summary, if any jurisdiction’s housing plan, affordable or not, is virtually all premise and little useful promise, it shouldn’t pass a good old-fashioned sniff test.
Footnotes
- Public, or social, housing is usually government owned, and charges rents of no more than 30% of a household’s gross annual earnings.
- ‘Missing middle’ housing refers to housing that is affordable for households with incomes up to 80% of the median income for a given region, often working professionals (e.g. teachers, firefighters and police).