By Pepper Parr
February 20th, 2026
BURLINGTON, ON
In what many saw as a “the sky is falling” delegation, Mike Collins Williams, the CEO of the West End Home Builders Association, representing more than 300 member companies across Hamilton, Burlington and Grimsby, including builders, developers, renovators and the professional services that support residential construction.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today, not just as an industry representative, but as someone who lives and works in this region and sees first hand the consequences of the decisions made around this table. For months now, I’ve been sharing what I can only describe as the tragic state of the residential construction industry.
Mike Collins Williams, the CEO of the West End Home Builders Association.
The honest truth is, it keeps getting worse. In my 25 years in this field, I’ve never seen conditions like this, not during the 2008 financial crisis, not ever. In fact, it’s not been this bad since the early 1990s by many measures, this downturn may even be more severe today.
I’m here to strongly urge you to approve option A in the staff report before you. The temporary, and I do emphasize the word temporary, two-year elimination of residential development charges. This is not an ideological ask. It’s a pragmatic, time-limited intervention to stabilize a housing pipeline that is on the verge of collapse. The new home market in Burlington and throughout the Golden Horseshoe is not experiencing a slowdown or a soft patch. We are in a full-blown crisis, one that threatens Burlington’s housing objectives, its future tax base and the likelihoods of 1000s of families in the Hamilton census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington.
Residential construction contributed more than $4.6 billion in investment value in 2024 and supported over 21,000 well-paying jobs, generating roughly 1.6 billion in wages. These are skilled trades people, planners, engineers, suppliers, people who depend on a functioning housing pipeline, and that pipeline is running dry across Ontario. The Office group now projects the loss of approximately 100,000 residential construction-related jobs over the next five years, if current conditions continue. Without decisive government intervention, projects are being paused, delayed indefinitely or cancelled outright.
Why? Because the math no longer works today. The cost of building a new home exceeds what the market can support. In many cases, the cost to construct a new unit is higher than the resale price of a comparable home. Developers cannot advance new projects at a loss. Lenders will not finance projects that are underwater on day one, and workers cannot stay employed in projects that never break ground.
The sales data for the third quarter included in the staff report before you is already alarming, but the full-year numbers are actually even worse.
In Burlington, new home sales collapsed from 213 units in 2022 to just 17 units in 2025; that’s over a 90% decline. In the condominium markets, only four units were sold in all of 2025 and yes, that differs from the staff report in front of you that says 12 units were sold between the first and third quarter. As a number of those sold units in the staff report were in a project that has since been cancelled. So in practical terms, the new housing market in Burlington is essentially dead.
A market that’s frozen cannot support new supply. It cannot support jobs, and it can certainly cannot support Burlington’s housing pledge, which the city is expected to meet by 2031, just five years away.
Under current economic conditions, Burlington cannot meet its housing objectives, not because of a lack of interest or ambition, but because project viability is fundamentally broken. When Development Charges, layered on top of escalating construction costs, labor costs, materials and financing pressures, have become a decisive barrier to getting projects out of the ground, as staff rightly note in the report.
“Without action, it will likely mean development charges will not be collected, given market conditions.” WE HBA agrees, without bold intervention, development will not proceed and DC will not generate revenue anyway. The good news is that Burlington does have tools available. Recent changes under Bill 17, the Protect Ontario by building faster and smarter act, explicitly gave municipalities the flexibility to temporarily reduce or eliminate Development Charges without requiring a new background study, the province has enabled municipalities to act quickly.
Mike Collins Williams, delegating with Vince Molinaro, president of the Molinaro Group, providing industry support.
This is not a permanent policy change. Is a two-year targeted response to extraordinary conditions. Other municipalities have stepped forward. Hamilton reduced DCS by 20% Mississauga cut DCS by 50% and eliminated them entirely for larger and rental units. Peel Region has implemented a major DC deferral and grant program and bond rolled back DCS to 2018 levels. Burlington now has the opportunity to lead, not follow.
There’s been a discussion I’ve heard about the potential cost of a DC elimination, but in the current market, that framing misses the point. If projects don’t proceed,DCs are not collected full stop. More importantly, the city foregoes the long-term economic benefits of growth, including property value assessment uplift. You forego future revenue that comes back each and every year. Take the Paradigm project by the Molinaro Group by the Burlington GO station, for example. Prior to the development of that site, it generated less than $40,000 per year in property taxes.
Post Development, the three completed towers exceed $1.5 million in property tax revenue annually. That number is going to jump again in a couple years, substantially when the two towers under construction right now are completed. That is the kind of long term revenue that funds infrastructure, services and community amenities, and it only exists if projects are built. Let me end where I began. This is not a normal moment. This is not business as usual. We’re facing a structural breakdown in project viability that threatens Burlington’s housing supply, its economic resilience and 1000s of middle-class jobs. A temporary elimination of residential development charges is a strategic, responsible and urgently needed measure. It will help stabilize the pipeline, unlock stalled projects, protect jobs, and send a clear signal that Burlington is serious about meeting this moment,.
WE HBA stands ready to work along the city to advocate for provincial and federal support needed to complement this approach. In fact, I’m currently deputing remotely from the Canadian Home Builders Association’s office in Ottawa, where about 100 industry executives from coast to coast are fanning out across Parliament Hill today and tomorrow for meetings with cabinet ministers and members of parliament to advocate for growth related infrastructure for municipalities as well as GST relief. We respectfully urge you to support option A and help put Burlington back on the path toward growth, affordability and long term economic stability. Thank you for your time this morning.
There was more than 30 minutes of back-and-forth debate after the delegation. We will get that to you shortly.
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Sitting there watching this in person was painful. I kept think what unmitigated gall to expect residents and taxpayers to bail out the development industry from their responsibilities, and to position themselves as US needing to do this to somehow save ourselves from disaster. As I said in my delegation, I don’t support any public money being handed to developers, let alone $100 Million over two years.
I suppose they are jealous of the telecom and airline industries and their never-ending government bailouts? The last thing we need is to add this group to that sorry mix.
Jim: love your comment on the presumed lack of clarity of Mike’s presentation, given the hour-long questioning. One of the worst things to watch during this was the current mayor – sitting there smiling and nodding at him and putting on her dramatic “worried/sad/we-must-step-in-to-save-the-day” face as he spoke. It’s almost impossible to believe this is the same person I and so many worked for in 2018, knowing what she was supposedly all about then vs now. Maybe we should call her Mayor 180.
I think that all of us who have commented negatively on Mike’s delegation, and its underlying premises, may be unfair. I’m relatively sure that on a good day – and Mike may not have been having very many of those lately – he would look at his script and think that it has all the inherent credibility of a Pam Bondi testimony. But look who is sitting there, representing “the boys” and making sure that Mike stays on message. Just sayin’
So Mr. Williams portrays the development industry as being under “serious strain” and urged that this pause on development charges be approved.
I can’t bring myself to appreciate his concern.
Development charges fund roads, water, wastewater, emergency services, community amenities. In any cyclical economy, those costs don’t vanish.
For years, during peak pricing and strong margins, there were no calls to share upside gains with residents. Now, in a slower market with tighter financing, the request is for the public to absorb private-sector risk.
One would assume that a prudent developer understands that real estate is cyclical. Interest rates rise. Sales slow. Credit tightens. Those aren’t “black swan” events — they’re recurring features of the market.
So the question is: where were the developer contingency plans?
Like built in risk buffers, adjusted land acquisition timing, scaled phases, or renegotiated financing in case conditions shift. That’s managing risk and it’s part of operating in a cyclical industry.
What shouldn’t be part of the model is assuming that when margins tighten, taxpayers will step in to smooth things over.
Our taxes shouldn’t be expected to cushion an industry downturn?
Markets reward foresight and discipline. They shouldn’t reward reliance on public subsidy when forecasts don’t materialize.
Growth must pay for growth. Otherwise, it’s not development — it’s simply cost shifting.
Mike says a lot, but does not seem to understand, or will not say he does, the core issue, although he says what it is that is broken.
He says that “Burlington cannot meet its housing objectives, ,,, because project viability is fundamentally broken.” Then he goes straight on to blame development charges.
He has been told for several years that the Ontario and Burlington housing plan itself, is not working because it is based on a reality that no longer exists, and all he does is bemoan that fact.
The real remedy is a brand new housing plan, because this one is not coming back, ever. What I read here is elaborate denial of that obvious fact. It’s a foolish gambit for taxpayers for Mike to claim a 2 year subsidy of free development charges is the needed fix. I say, rubbish.
If this is all that is needed to get things moving, like Mike is really facetiously saying here, then the responsible investors, and owner developers should just ante up. Take some out of the price you charge for the land. And you don’t even have to pay them until you get a planning approval, building permits, and site plan.
All this talk is about is getting 15 to 45 million bucks for free. I say, put up your own money. It’s your business model, with large planning development density and intensity value approval potentials. It is a cheap cost to get a lawyer and consultant, or someone like Mike, to say what you want them to for purpose.
Hey Mike as a twenty-year Burlington homeowner, I have no interest in Burlington’s 2031 housing pledge. Politicians in this country at all levels have become virtually unaccountable.
Advice Mike. Spend your time and effort with senior level governments that have largely created and continue to foster these macro-economic issues. Our problems in Canada are mostly self-created and I don’t suffer from TDS. Forget handouts from property taxes. If your companies can’t stand on their own feet find something else to do.
I have no interest in my taxes funding services and infrastructure for millions of often untrained and unskilled newcomers herded into Canada to support meagre GDP growth. Many highly trained immigrants are leaving the country. I wonder why?
The build faster and smarter Bill 17 is laughable. Just marketing. If there was credible political opposition in Ontario, we would have already seen Ford’s backside. Middle class Canada has all but been erased when our children cannot afford decent homes and think of even raising a family.
It has been reported that 20% of all working Canadians are employed in our “non-productive” public sector and 25% of those working make less than minimum wage. As 32 million work that means one in three Canadians outside of the public sector over ten million citizens will never be able to own any property, much less pay rent or buy healthy food. Where and when will housing demand come back?
Perhaps when government spending and the size of government is slashed and when we have trade stability with our valued southern neighbour. We might then see investment return and improvements in productivity. Currently our political masters seem bent on poking the child to the south. That will not end well.
I see we are now expediting new immigrants to come to Canada work in highly skilled military roles. Can you believe that? I suspect the feds will soon open up recruitment stations in Beijing and Moscow. After all China is subsidizing the Kremlin in the Ukraine.
Burlington has been sitting on its hands
Vs
The construction industry crying me a river….they have had extraordinary
Profits in the last years ..besides always ensuring units being sold or revising prices of units ..so no suffering ..ever
“If there are no questions it just means that you have provided clear comments that don’t require clarification”
I guess WEHB wasn’t very clear.
It took over an hour for Council to get clarity.
I think that this may be the best comment ever posted in the Gazette.
Does Mike Collins Williams not grasp that the housing industry is not the only business sector that is in trouble?
Anyone who purchased a new condominium unit is well aware of how the “extras like additional electrical outlets etc. are charged back to the purchaser at a hefty profit. Not to mention the obscene amount of money that some have to pay for a parking spot in the building.
Now in this time of economic uncertainty that affects everyone they come to the Burlington Taxpayer to bail them out.
There is absolutely no guarantee that these developers will build affordable houses or if indeed they will be rentals.
For those of you who may not be aware many developers register their units as condominiums even if they initially say they are rentals. What this means is that at any time the owner of the building can decide that they want to sell these units. From what I understand the renters have the right of first refusal to purchase their unit or leave.
Developers made a choice when deciding how many units they could put in their buildings. Most have very small units that list at about $1,000.00 per square foot. They built units that the public does not want. Perhaps they should have a “fire sale” – lower their prices and perhaps some will purchase them.
I went to No Frills yesterday and the 1.5 litre Fairlife milk that cost $5.99, then $6.49, then $ 7.29 is now $8.09. Yes $8.09 for a 1.5 litre of milk in a discount grocery store.. This price change happened over a 3 month period.
Should we now give a subsidy to either the milk producers or the grocery stores?
Where does it end?
I have read the argument to have the city help fund the building industry. Perhaps if car sales fall off (as they do now and again) we should throw some tax dollars to the local car dealerships. How about local small businesses or stores and so on?
This is one opinion.
Builders need to figure this out
No more government bail outs at present home owners expense in the form of future tax increases