We need radical zoning…

We need radical zoning reform in this province.

The entire City of Toronto should be required to permit fourplexes (and also 4 dwelling units) in all residential areas as-of-right. It's important to also specify that 4 dwelling units has to be permitted as-of-right because in many areas of the city that are zoned to permit triplexes and fourplexes you are still only permitted 2 dwelling units as-of-right. Meaning you have to get a minor variance to building housing in areas the city says it wants that housing.

Toronto has far too many neighbourhoods that have been losing population while prices have soared. A consequence of its lack of housing has been that many people in their childbearing years have been forced out of the GTA as a whole. This has created further problems for people living in communities like London and Hamilton, as its caused many people who grew up in Toronto to move to these communities. This has just caused prices to increase in them (at the expense of their long-term residents who can't afford these new prices).

We need a decisive, profound shift in how we zone for residential within Toronto. Toronto has access to transit services (subways, GO trains) that other communities don't have. Not to mention an extensive bus service and a budget (and funding mechanisms like the land transfer tax) that other municipalities don't have. The province needs to become far more aggressive in forcing the City of Toronto to upzone. Even in places that are not within 800 metres of a transit station.

The provinces needs to heavily scale back the use of Historic Preservation Districts within the City of Toronto. Kensington Market and the Distillery District are fine. But so much of Toronto is within a short distance of the downtown yet development can't occur because of these restrictions. Many of these areas used to be working class neighbourhoods but regular folks now can't afford to own properties in them now. By choosing to preserve these buildings, at the expense of greater density, we are simply forcing regular folks to commute further and further distances from the downtown. This removes them from being able to spend time with their families or recreationally. It's policy that favours a flawed view of the historic past at the expense of regular folks living today.

Types of zoning and what is permitted should be consistent across municipalities in Ontario (and certainly at least the GTA). No more having every municipality deciding all sorts of different restrictions on what is permitted on land zoned residential. Keeping it predictable and consistent will be of great benefit for developers, homeowners, and other interested parties. At the moment with every municipality having its own rules it's a complete mess.

To have any force or effect all zoning bylaws should be required to be posted online in full. There are many older zoning bylaws in the City of Toronto that are not even online. Its 2022 for crying out loud! They should be online. Even if only as a PDF.

Municipal governance in this province is incredibly bloated by overcomplicated zoning laws. We need to limit what municipalities can restrict. Don't allow them to block developments based on height if they are under 3 storeys unless there is a clear environmental reason (for instance concerns over erosion). Don't allow them to weaponize setbacks, floor area ratios, or any other arbitrary metric in order to prevent gentle densities.

Only proponents of a development and municipalities should be able to appeal to the LPAT/TLAB for minor variances.

Finally, zoning reform only will go so far. This issue is much broader than the narrow focus on supply that is being explored at the moment.

Either way, we need bold leadership on this issue.

I don't just mean "bold" leadership, where you pretend to do something "bold" but really it is pretty underwhelming. I mean decisive action that makes people take notice. Because that is just how bad this situation has been allowed to become.

Unfortunately, this has to be province-led because history has shown us that city-led initiatives like this rarely work. They are often toned down to the point where they have very little effect. It is in the province's interest to be incredibly aggressively in favour of redeveloping the residential areas of the City of Toronto in particular to permit more missing middle housing. This will help to keep more young families in Toronto and reduce the strain that we are seeing now in elementary schools in places like London (who are struggling to handle the influx of new students that they are seeing).