Ontario must build 1.5 million homes in the next 10 years, says the housing affordability task force commissioned by Doug Ford to find solutions to cool the overheated real estate market.
The task force – which is made up of real estate developers, urban planners and industry adjacent advocates – delivered their report on February 8, which as expected pushed for much-needed density in municipalities across Ontario with supply-side recommendations. Meanwhile, the report did not push for municipalities to expand their boundaries and encroach on more land, as previously suspected.
CBC reported on a leaked draft of the task force recommendations, which included the suggestion to expand urban boundaries in Ontario, effectively allowing for real estate developers to build more housing on greenspace or help make way for the Bradford Bypass and Highway 413, which the Ford government has been angling for.
That suggestion is absent from the current report, which focuses on intensification in municipalities. But the report doesn’t dismiss building on farmland with an eye towards developing “compact and livable” neighbourhoods from the get-go. “Land is available, both inside the existing built-up areas and on undeveloped land outside greenbelts,” says the report. How the Ford government proceeds with this vague guidance demands scrutiny.
Elsewhere, the report expectedly calls for an end to exclusionary zoning, a welcome bulldozer to the NIMBYism in neighbourhoods that prevents anything but single-family homes. The report also undermines municipal guidance in its sledgehammer approach to approvals and “red tape” (which are admittedly belaboured) so that the developers can save on costs and make affordable housing available faster. Toronto has bylaws designed to make spaces more livable (i.e. more park space and adequate plumbing), so having such guidance undermined by the Ontario government isn’t always a good thing.
But these recommendations will be readily embraced as desperate solutions to real estate prices. The average house price in the province nearly tripled to $923,000 in the last decade, according to the report, while average incomes have only grown 38 per cent. The task force also cites a 2021 Scotiabank report revealing that Canada has the lowest housing units per population than any G7 country, with Ontario real estate contributing two thirds of the country’s housing shortfall.
In the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), the average home price (condos included) is higher than ever at $1,242,793, according to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB). The average price for a detached home in the 416 reached $1,886,413. TRREB regularly cites these rising prices as a reason to build more immeidately, declaring a desperate need for supply as the population grows.
However, in a February 9 Globe and Mail report, Rachelle Younglai points out that according to census data Toronto housing units increased at a faster rate that the population. Younglai compared the 7 per cent increase in private dwellings in the city between 2016 and 2021 to the 4.6 per cent population growth. Maybe the rapid expansion of bachelor and one-bedroom condos that developers find most profitable isn’t going to address affordability issue.
Like TRREB, the Ontario affordability task force only makes supply-side recommendations, without considering any demand-side approaches that could cool down prices like speculation taxes or an end to blind bidding. TRREB actually opposed a speculation tax on investment buyers even though the Bank of Canada said that multi-property owners, who make up a quarter of buyers in the Toronto real estate market, are driving up real estate prices. The Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA), whose CEO Tim Hudak is part of the Ontario Affordability Task Force, has also been extremely vocal in their opposition to calls to end blind bidding.
