Ontario gets road map for building 1.5 million homes in next decade

Ontario should aim to build 1.5 million new homes in the next decade by increasing density in urban and suburban areas and by drastically overhauling how cities approve housing projects, says a new report commissioned by Premier Doug Ford's government.

The Housing Affordability Task Force makes 55 recommendations aimed at reining in home prices by dramatically boosting the supply of housing. The cost of buying the average home in Ontario has nearly tripled over the past 10 years.

The report is to be released publicly on Tuesday morning, less than two months after Ford and Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark appointed the task force. The government provided CBC News with a copy in advance.

"We are in a housing crisis and that demands immediate and sweeping reforms," says a letter in the report from task force chair Jake Lawrence, CEO of Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets.

Immediate reforms could be in place before Ontario's provincial election on June 2. Ford's Progressive Conservatives intend to bring in legislation responding to the task force report during the upcoming sitting of Queen's Park, a senior government official told CBC News.

Housing affordability is one of the top concerns of Ontario voters, according to recent polling. Ford and his ministers have frequently raised the soaring cost of housing as an issue of late and touted boosting supply as the solution.

The task force's proposed changes would lessen the power that cities have over housing developments by giving the province the authority to impose standards related to zoning, density and urban design.

"The way housing is approved and built was designed for a different era," Lawrence writes. "The balance has swung too far in favour of lengthy consultations, bureaucratic red tape and costly appeals." 

Some of the report's key recommendations:

"The province must set an ambitious and bold goal to build 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years," the report says. That would mean doubling Ontario's current pace of new construction. About 75,000 new housing units were started in 2020, more than in any year of the previous decade.

"A shortage of land isn't the cause of the problem," the report continues. "Land is available, both inside the existing built-up areas and on undeveloped land outside greenbelts. We need to make better use of land."

The task force highlights that Toronto has just one-quarter the population density of such major global cities as New York and London.

The report includes several recommendations that echo what developers have been seeking from the province.

"Cut the red tape so we can build faster and reduce costs," reads the title of a section on development approvals. "Municipalities allow far more public consultation than is required."