Ontario’s Housing Affordability Task Force has published a report featuring recommended measures to increase the supply of market housing across the province. Appointed in December, 2021, the Task Force was created to help the government identify and implement solutions to address Ontario’s critical housing supply shortage.

“Everyone has a role to play in addressing the housing supply crisis. As our government consults with municipalities, the public, and industry leaders and experts, we are balancing these perspectives to develop practical, forward-thinking policies that unlock and fast-track all types of housing for all types of Ontarians,” said Steve Clark, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. “I’d like to thank Jake Lawrence and the entire Task Force for their hard work, including conducting extensive consultations with other stakeholders, to develop their report.”

The report’s recommendations are divided into the five main areas it has determined will best increase the supply of market housing and meet a goal of adding 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years. Those areas include:

• Making changes to planning policies and zoning to allow for greater density and increase the variety of housing.
• Reducing and streamlining urban design rules to lower costs of development.
• Depoliticizing the approvals process to address NIMBYism and cut red tape to speed up housing.
• Preventing abuse of the appeal process and address the backlog at the Ontario Land Tribunal by prioritizing cases that increase housing.
• And aligning efforts between all levels of government to incentivize more housing.

Additionally, the Task Force’s report makes other recommendations to increase housing supply over the long-term, including to digitize and modernize the approvals and planning process, grow the skilled labour workforce, and encourage new pathways to home ownership.

“When Premier Ford and Minister Clark created the Task Force our instructions were clear: to deliver concrete, actionable recommendations to address the housing affordability crisis by getting more homes built,” said Jake Lawrence, Chair of the Housing Affordability Task Force and Chief Executive Officer and Group Head, Global Banking and Markets at Scotiabank. “Lengthy reviews, bureaucratic red tape, and costly appeals are making it too difficult to build new housing. We propose an ambitious and achievable goal to build 1.5 million homes over the next ten years and the steps needed to get there.”

The Task Force report is part of the government’s broader plan to seek feedback from a variety of sources, including through municipal and public consultations, to identify and implement measures to address the housing supply crisis and get homes built faster. In January, Premier Ford and Minister Clark hosted the Ontario-Municipal Housing Summit and the Rural Housing Roundtable to coordinate efforts with municipalities, and the government recently held an online public consultation for Ontarians to share their input, which received over 2,000 responses.