Ontario Premier Doug Ford during a visit to the Austin Chamber of Commerce in Texas on April 2.Sergio Flores/The Globe and Mail
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has taken steps in the right direction on housing. He’s moved to cut taxes and development charges on new homes, and showed a willingness to force municipalities to change zoning rules that get in the way of building more of them.
Except that the zoning changes wouldn’t go far enough, and how they’re being done is an inefficient way to pursue the goal of increasing housing.
Ontario is in a particularly difficult position when it comes to housing. Prices in the province are more than 20 per cent below their pandemic high, unlike other parts of the country that have mostly continued to rise. Lower prices have dampened housing starts in Ontario, because homes are becoming uneconomical to build with the cost of construction remaining stubbornly high.
Mr. Ford, whose government has downgraded its goal of having 1.5 million new homes by 2031 to a “soft target,” has blamed various factors for the slowness in getting homes started. First rising interest rates and then taxes on homes and municipal fees. To his credit, he has taken steps to address the latter two issues.
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With Prime Minister Mark Carney, Mr. Ford reached a deal to eliminate temporarily HST on new homes (resale homes were exempt already). And, again in partnership with the federal government, he promised to reward municipalities that cut their fees by offering matching funding for infrastructure.
This space has praised these incentives. However, it has also called for something Mr. Ford stubbornly refuses to do: force municipalities to allow multiple-unit dwellings in all neighbourhoods.
Currently, large swathes of many cities are reserved for single-family homes. That needs to change, not to make multiplexes mandatory, or to prohibit traditional family homes, but to increase the choices available to homebuyers.
This was a recommendation of the government’s own housing task force. However, Mr. Ford has insisted that local mayors would be up in arms if the province implemented such a change.
Which is an interesting take. Because Mr. Ford is quite willing to override municipal leaders in other contexts.
He has cut Toronto council in half during an election campaign, overruled it on bike lanes and plans to take over the city’s stake in its downtown airport so he can expand the facility against the wishes of council.
Ontario moves to allow building homes on smaller lots
His meddling is not restricted to his hometown. Last week his government introduced legislation that would let it appoint the top politicians in a number of fast-growing regions, such as Durham and Peel. These regional chairs would be granted the power to override the democratic will of council on issues deemed provincial priorities.
Another avenue for (good) interference is local rules about minimum lot sizes. In his recent raft of housing changes, Mr. Ford signalled that his government could impose a provincial standard that is much smaller than the current rule in many municipalities.
Mandating large lots was traditionally a way to prevent smaller homes that were seen as reducing neighbourhood appeal. The net effect was to prevent more affordable homes, keeping the area exclusive. The Ford government is on firm ground in replacing a patchwork of rules with a fairly small minimum lot size of 175 square metres.
However, smaller lots are only one way to allow for more homes. The downside of building more but smaller homes is that each still requires its own foundation, its own sewer hook-up, its own gas line and so on.
Another way to achieve the goal of increasing the availability of homes is to allow a greater number of them on the same property. Putting four homes together in a single building allows them to share many of the costs, resulting in a more affordable product overall.
Mr. Ford spent years in the family business before entering politics, which makes his instincts on housing surprising.
Changing zoning to allow more types of housing is the free-market approach, and would give people choices sorely lacking under today’s rules. Forcing developers to build only one type of home is the sort of central planning that, outside of housing, is not common in modern economies.
If Mr. Ford is going to keep on interfering in municipal affairs, as is obviously his wont, it’s bizarre that he has chosen this moment to be shy about prodding local politicians.