Question 1: What are the…

Question 1:
What are the biggest barriers and delays to diversifying the types of housing built in existing neighbourhoods?
One of them is restrictions to what types of housing can be built due to zoning are certain an issue, as laid out in the housing report. There is no reason why areas zoned as residential cannot have a mix of different housing types. However, in some cases the amount of infrastructure available to support higher densities can be a legitimate issue. Provincial assistance in improving infrastructure to support higher density is necessary. We also need sufficient minimum density targets, which would help keep a consistent density within urban areas, and guarantee some missing middle housing would be built to achieve them on limited space. These targets would need to be sufficiently high to compel missing middle housing to be included in new developments.

Question 2:
What further changes to the planning and development process would you suggest to make it easier to support gentle density and build missing middle housing and multigenerational housing, in Ontario?
Developers often do not build on more expensive lands in core urban areas, and instead seek lands on the periphery to build subdivisions of single family homes - which leads to windfall profits. This leads to sprawl, and higher living costs for all. It also leads to habitat fragmentation, and degrades large chunks of the environment, and a patchwork of low density. Policies to improve purchase of more expensive urban lands and limit subdivisions away from developed urban areas seem like a good start (in additional to minimum density targets). This would make transit more feasible for more people, as development is always kept as close as possible to the urban core within urban boundaries, and make it harder to justify just producing more car centric low density development. It also means cities can focus their budgets on servicing higher densities in a smaller space (far more cost effective) than few people spaced apart.