How Ontario watered down a landmark housing law as new builds hit the brakes

Internal government documents and calendars obtained by Global News suggest the law that as ultimately unveiled fell short of the housing minister's initial vision.

The first major piece of housing legislation to emerge from Queen’s Park in the wake of the Greenbelt scandal was meant to be a bill squarely focused on meeting the province’s goal of building 1.5 million homes by 2031.

Instead, the new law — tabled by Housing Minister Paul Calandra in April — was delayed by almost a month as key policy measures that could have added thousands of new homes to Ontario’s housing market were unceremoniously scrapped.

Internal government documents and calendars obtained by Global News suggest the measures that were ultimately unveiled fell short of Calandra’s initial vision after a three-week scramble.

Changes, critics believe, that were directly made by Premier Doug Ford.

The bill was titled the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act — or Housing Supply Action Plan Five, internally — and came at a key time for the government.

As Calandra tabled the watered-down law at Queen’s Park, homebuilding was faltering across the province. Ontario’s ambitious target of building 1.5 million new homes by 2031 was slipping away and looking near impossible to achieve, with the government admitting aggressive changes were necessary.

“These measures recognize the struggles that our municipal partners have faced in building homes and are targeted at removing those obstacles,” Calandra said when the law was unveiled.

The law removed parking minimums beside transit stations, reversed some discounts the government had given to developers and allowed universities to sidestep the Planning Act in order to build accommodation quicker.