By Pepper Parr
October21st, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
To make inroads in the housing crisis plaguing our cities, we must focus squarely on systemic issues, particularly at the municipal level.
Getting construction crews to this point – the paper work has to get through municipal planning departments – a challenge that is not being met.
Some of the best minds in the province are doing their best to get the message out – those messages seem to get stalled at the door to municipal Council Chambers across the province.
Richard Lyall told participants at a recent Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON) event that in order “to make inroads into the housing supply and affordability crisis plaguing our cities, we must address and focus squarely on systemic issues, particularly at the municipal level.
He went on to say: “Lengthy wait times for residential development applications are stymieing the building of new homes and condos. It has become increasingly difficult for developers to put shovels in the ground on projects.
Jamie Tellier, Director of Community Planning in Burlington has managed to make some changes in the way planning staff handle their projects – pushing them to take some risks and make decisions. So far he has only been able to apply that on small development projects.
“Building departments are behind the times. Our permitting system must be digitized, standardized and streamlined across the province. Presently, up to 45 different government bodies and agencies can be involved in the decision-making process on a new project. Far too many. It only gums up the wheels of progress and leads to lengthy and unnecessary delays on projects.
“Our country ranks 34th out of 35 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in the average time it takes to obtain regulatory approval for a construction project.
“Obtaining a building permit in Canada is often a protracted process. We are demonstrably behind the times. One could grow old waiting for the bureaucracy to approve a building permit in this country.
“The disturbing reality, though, is that housing starts are trending in the wrong direction. CMHC reported that the annual pace of housing starts in Canada edged down 1% in August compared with July.”
An Ontario leader in the thinking being done on how the problem at the municipal level commented on the issues as she saw them in Burlington said: The problem in Burlington is that there is little in the way of creative thinking at the Council level and a City Manager more concerned with creating an organization and a Strategic Plan. The person asked that she not be identified saying “I have to work with these people.
Mike Moffatt, Senior Director of Policy and Innovation at the Smart Prosperity Institute.
Mike Moffatt, an economist and Senior Director of Policy and Innovation at the Smart Prosperity Institute, spoke at a housing summit and indicated that “Ontario needs to build 170,000 homes a year over the next decade, but without substantial reforms, the province will likely see 100,000 or less built a year”. He said we won’t get where we need to be with minor tweaks.
Municipalities in the GTA are among the lowest-ranked regions in Canada when it comes to the approvals process, time it takes to get a project approved, and government charges per square foot on new low- and high-rise housing.
Marlon Bray, Senior Director of Cost Consulting at Altus Group.
Marlon Bray, Senior Director of Cost Consulting at Altus Group, told the housing summit that there is no use nibbling at the edges as we are in immediate need of big plans and reforms. He stressed the need for quick action as 65% of new housing construction is high-rise, which takes years to build.
We are at the crossroads of a generational crisis in housing, one that is unprecedented. When you get to the point that the middle class can’t afford housing, you know that you have a serious problem.
Fixes must be found.
Please don’t blame the planning staff. That’s a easy out called blame-casting.
In my experience, developers want too much in permissions and staff have to handle every one compared to their Plan and needs/wants for the City.
Then there is a long list to consider in the Planning Act legal framework and multiple other regulations that need oversight and enforcement, as the Gazette described the other day.
This takes time and overloads multiple staff, because they have mandated timelines from the Province to complete their reviews of everything and complete reports and recommendations to Council.
These timelines have been shortened recently from 90 to 60 days. Staff are under the gun of mandated timelines for reports to Council for a yes or no decision on every application.
This mix of provincial policy changes and developer demands, and City development application policy actions, together, are basically bidding up land prices a lot. These higher prices make the employment, retail and commercial land uses needed for “complete communities” not competitive, so developers buy these lands and apply to redevelop the lands to residential, with a small retail or commercial (non-residential) use allotment of Square feet.
Reasons for small retail or non-residential space in the plans are stated as the very high cost of land, construction, and other costs
This land price inflation from changing the mix of uses to higher value, and the much higher value of increasing the overall use allowed to high density residential, bids up condo selling prices, such that there is no such thing as “affordable housing ” in this mix of converging forces.
One recent example had a pre-application meeting at 1026 Cooke Blvd, which will convert the employment property existing to 29 story high density residential with very little retail.
There is no official application submitted yet, but the concept of mass conversion of employment to high density residential is proven. For example, in Aldershot, this conversion has been going on for 20 plus years, with much more to come. The overall and visible result is that much of the preexisting retail, grocery, small mall commercial and employment within walking distance is gone.
This is a speculative proposal, driven by higher height and density permissions and conversions from employment to residential. This is an obvious land economic value increase that by nature will induce such speculation potential that is succeeding in appearing in other examples being seen in the Aldershot MTSA, in fact in a proposal adjacent at 1029-1033 Waterdown Rd which is at OLT. This kind of conversion from employment to high density residential is planned as what will become of the MTSA..
Developers have been equipped by the Province for ever more incentives to demand more and delay because they can’t lose because of OLT, and that OLT is charged with delivering the Provincial Growth Plan, or more..
If planners say don’t make the mandated deadline to decide on an application, the developer gets an automatic right to appeal to OLT.
If developer doesn’t like what the City wants within the deadline, developer can appeal to OLT.
An outstanding example of this is the mass appeal by about 48 developers that appealed the entire Official Plan of Burlington. Due to these appeals, the Burlington New OP is not in force and effect or determinant.
All this appeal processes just mix together to add many months to years to the development planning process timeline.
The result of which has the Burlington OP not in force and effect, so all applications can be appealed to OLT on these grounds. So Burlington developments planning is being decided at OLT in these cases, and developers can appeal every application if something is in the appealed sections of the not in force OP.
The current schedule to hear all the appeals emerging from this mass appeal has been broken up into several sections of draft OP, and is expected to take several years at present.
Compare this to the staff 60 or 90 day deadline as an obstacle to getting units built – the developers do not have to proceed to build, and many are not, and are sitting on approved applications for years.
To conclude this comment, I must add that getting approval to proceed, however achieved, does not mean residential units will be built. I have participated in several developments that were approved, but on site nothing has been built or even site preparation started – only a weed field grows after 3 to 4 years.
For example: 92 Plains Rd; 35 Plains Rd; Solid Gold Site at Cooke and Plains, 40 – 70 Plains Rd
You can go and have a look
It worked after the war all over the world to address an affordable housing crisis. Governments and companies built the houses needed. At an affordable price. Not a popular idea we know for those who have built empires providing homes and there was nothing wrong with that. But these are different times and we need different means of meeting the needs in an affordable and urgent manner.