The proposed Provincial…

The proposed Provincial Planning Statement 2024 represents a positive step forward to introduce flexibility into a previously excessively rigid planning system. The Growth Plan introduced in 2006 had put in place policies that reduced growth, and deliberately suppressed the availability of land for housing through either conversions, or settlement area expansions. This set of anti-growth policies is the principal cause of the current housing crisis in Ontario. The new proposed Provincial Planning Statement will remove many of these barriers, and as a result will ultimately produce the delivery of additional housing supply.

The Housing Policy section is focused, and provides clear direction. For example, the wording proposed to encourage residential intensification, including in undeveloped or underutilized lands in a shopping centre, is helpful. It matches exactly a situation of a development proposal for a Belmont Equity shopping centre that has been resisted by a local Council, which has sought to maintain the undeveloped parcel for warehousing or manufacturing employment uses - uses not appropriate to the site. The new Provincial policy will provide helpful guidance.

The new focused definition of "employment area" helps to clarify and focus such land use designations as originally intended - on protecting land for space extensive manufacturing and warehousing.

The new proposed "employment area" definition should, however, be modified slightly to prevent the "grandfathering" provisions being used as a loophole through which a municipality can continue an employment area designation on lands that are entirely, or mostly, composed of non-employment uses. Such abuse in the past has made the introduction of housing into what are essentially mixed-use areas difficult, by making conversions necessary to introduce housing into areas otherwise entirely appropriate for housing.

Other positive changes include the ability to apply for conversions outside the context of a municipal comprehensive review, and the inclusion of more appropriate policy tests for conversions. Taken together, these policy changes, if properly able to be enforced through appeals to the Tribunal if necessary (a companion change still missing from Bill 185), should result in significant additional housing supply being constructed in the future in Ontario.