The Council for Canadian…

The Council for Canadian Urbanism (CanU) is a national organization bringing together urbanists and city builders through our annual summits, our regular events, and the activities of our working groups and caucuses. Our Board of Directors and membership consists of private and public sector professionals from across Canada with an interest and expertise in urbanism.
As the Province continues to grow, it is important to be reminded of the need for quality in the manner in which we plan and design our communities. Urban Design plays a crucial role in shaping the quality of our living environment. It involves many different disciplines including planning, development, architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, economics, law and finance, among others.
As an organization and as professional practitioners, we recognize the dire need for greater housing affordability in Ontario and the need to take action to help address our current housing crisis. We are strong believers in supporting intensification and the streamlining of planning processes to deliver housing across our communities but not at the expense of delivering complete, sustainable, and liveable communities.
Housing affordability is a measure of economic prosperity. Quality design ensures the creation of complete communities that influence the economic success and diverse social fabric of a community.
Urban design plays an important role in facilitating more housing through good design ensuring all housing is part of a healthy, complete, and attractive community that can and does co-exist and fit into its context. Conversely, bad design leads to public backlash hindering the provision of much needed housing. In short, urban design can be used as a very effective tool to ensure quality, sustainable growth.
Bill 23 proposes extensive modifications to a number of Acts and regulations and if passed as proposed, in combination with Bill 109, these changes will hinder the ability of municipalities and practitioners to ensure that complete communities can be delivered across Ontario.
CanU is concerned with the following provisions affecting urban design and ultimately the quality of life, of all Ontarians:

• Proposed changes to the Development Charges Act limit the financial resources available to municipalities to ensure growth pays for growth. Without sufficient funding, municipalities can neither deliver infrastructure, nor create a safe, high-quality public realm, particularly in areas where it is most needed, e.g., intensification areas. Furthermore, there is no legislative provision to ensure the development savings being introduced will be transferred to the buyer.