The slow crawl of cities on housing reform

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Anyone who has watched a child learn to walk will recognize how Canadian cities tackle housing policy. After much cajoling and handholding, they bravely stand up and take a few tentative steps forward, only to topple back to ground.

This will seem unfair to the many city staff and councillors who have worked hard to shepherd zoning reforms through municipal government. Their efforts have been valuable. Still, too often they are undermined by other councillors who try to stop progress in its tracks.

There is recent risk of ground being lost in both Toronto and Edmonton.

In Toronto, after literally years of debate over allowing multiplexes – buildings with two or more housing units – in residential neighbourhoods, a committee made up of city politicians voted overwhelmingly this month to loosen the rules. The policy, if it passes at city council later in June, would expand the current multiplex limit to six units per property from four, city wide.

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That’s the good news. One key benefit of this change is that developers of five-unit buildings can apply to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation for low down payments, long amortization and mortgage insurance. That alone makes a sixplex more viable than a fourplex. And of course there’s also the benefit of creating housing people need. Toronto’s policy shift is a step in the correct direction that council should endorse.

But plaudits must be rationed. Because before voting in favour at committee, Frances Nunziata, a long-time councillor, said she planned to talk to city staff about adding rules to prevent bungalows being replaced by multiplexes in quieter neighbourhoods. This is flawed logic, for a few reasons.

First, a property owner can replace a bungalow with a large single-family home. So why should a multiplex be treated differently? And second, the point of a city-wide policy change is that it applies everywhere. Start making exceptions for neighbourhoods based on local complaints and pretty soon Toronto will be a mishmash of exemptions.

If city staff agree to support Ms. Nunziata’s approach, council should vote it down, along with every other motion that seeks to block needed change.

A frustrating aspect of zoning debates is that so much of them is consumed with councillors and staff trying to assure residents that loosening the rules won’t destroy their neighbourhoods.

There is a strongly anti-apartment and anti-density tradition in much of English-speaking Canada and it is taken as an article of faith by many homeowners that renters bring down local property values. But arguments against such views won’t be won on the defensive. Instead of waging a rear-guard action – arguing “it won’t be as bad as you think” – pro-housing councillors and city staff should be explaining why adding residents and making neighbourhoods more dense is a good thing. More on that in coming days.

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In Edmonton, meanwhile, a councillor got the votes last week to launch public consultations on tightening the rules around multiplexes. Councillor Michael Janz wants to reduce to six from eight the maximum number of units in this type of development when there are properties on both sides.

And Mr. Janz wants to accelerate a laundry list of rules proposed by city staff around the design of row houses, another form of modest densification. These would add requirements intended to placate neighbours, such as not allowing multiplexes to be as big, which is billed as having the advantage of allowing more parking. The rules would also limit the number of doors on the side of a multiplex and mandate how many windows are needed on the front.

These ideas are not persuasive. It’s not a net positive if, on any given property, the space for humans gets smaller and the space for cars gets bigger. Quite the opposite. Neighbours who don’t like having an entrance facing them can put up a fence, the same as if they had a window aimed in their direction. And telling developers how much glass is needed on the front of a property is a bizarre example of government meddling in the free market.

In both Edmonton and Toronto, city governments should push back against those trying to block change. They can show their maturity on housing by continuing to put one foot in front of the other, fighting the forces that are trying to push them off balance.