Pellerin: Ontario’s new housing bill won’t reduce homelessness

Homelessness afflicts Ottawa and many Ontario cities, and the province’s recent actions to address it aren’t enough. Photo by TONY CALDWELL /POSTMEDIAArticle content

A new noise bylaw will make it easier for Ottawans to whoop it up a little louder, and I suppose that’s good. But it won’t prompt those of us who are waiting for visible progress in the fight against homelessness and housing unaffordability to scream for joy. Recent news reports have us quietly optimistic at best.

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When the provincial government introduced a bill Monday to speed up new housing construction by lowering fees for developers, I immediately called Ottawa housing expert Carolyn Whitzman, author of the fantastic book Home Truths: Fixing Canada’s Housing Crisis, to see what she thought.

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A nothingburger, she said, as we chatted by phone Tuesday morning, each watching our own TV to see who would be appointed federal housing minister.

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When he announced the Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act, 2025 in Vaughanon Monday, Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Rob Flack said the bill aimed to make it “more affordable to build and buy a home in Ontario.” The legislation does that by limiting municipal studies into new developments and speeding up the approval process for minor variances.

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Given that the devil is always in the details, I went looking into the text of the bill for some kind of definition of “minor” variances. It’s on page 9, where it says minor variances are small changes to zoning bylaws. Jeez, thanks.

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Those small changes currently have to be approved by a committee after a four-stage process. Under the new legislation, the minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing will have the power to allow variations to be permitted “as-of-right” and thus greatly reduce “barriers for development.”

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In addition, the legislation will “streamline” development charges, prevent municipalities from imposing standards that go beyond the provincial building code and – ah, yes – limit the number of affordable units that municipalities can require in a given development. No wonder Ottawa home builders are happy.

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I don’t want homebuilders miserable but theirs is not the only happiness we should pursue.

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As Whitzman points out, reducing red tape and development charges will do nothing for people who are homeless or in danger of becoming so. “In general people don’t move from an encampment to a subdivision in Markham,” she says. “If you’re talking about the housing crisis, it needs to be broken down in terms of who needs what housing, where and at what cost.”

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In addition to happy for-profit developers, we need a whole bunch of new non-market housing, co-ops, supportive housing and all manner of affordable homes for those whose household income is less than six figures. Remember, affordable housing shouldn’t cost you more than 30 per cent of your household’s gross income. If that number is $50,000, then your housing shouldn’t cost you more than $15,000 a year, or $1,250 a month. Good luck finding that in Ottawa unless you’re prepared to share a one-bedroom apartment with someone else.